Abstract

The Event-Based Prospective Memory Impairment as an Early Indicator of Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

Author(s): Ke Ding, Jingjing Zhao, Ke Zuo, Xiaosan Wu, Huaidong Cheng, Chiang-Shan R Li

Background
Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) is an early stage of Alzheimer’ disease (AD).
Memory loss is the hallmark of aMCI. In comparison to a vast literature on Retrospective
memory (RM) disorders in aMCI, relatively little is known about Prospective memory (PM) in
aMCI.

Methods
aMCI patients (n=52) and normal controls (n=52) were administered with a battery of
neuropsychological tests including prospective memory(PM) (event and time-based
prospective memory; EBPM and TBPM) and retrospective memory(RM) (Item memory and
Source memory) tasks.

Results
Compared with normal controls, aMCI group were impaired in EBPM as well as in TBPM and
RM (P<0.01; P<0.05; P<0.05) furthermore the EBPM were impaired more significantly (P<0.01).
The results show that there are significant PM and RM impairment in aMCI patients, especially
on EBPM.

Conclusion
The present study show that aMCI patients manifest PM and RM impairment, but EBPM
impairment is worse than TBPM and RM. It indicated that the EBPM impairment may be an
early behavioral marker in aMCI patients.