Subjective cognitive decline and β-amyloid burden predict cognitive change in healthy elderly.

Objective: To assess in a longitudinal study whether subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and brain β-amyloid (Aβ) contribute unique information to cognitive decline.

Methods: One hundred thirty-six healthy elderly from the Berkeley Aging Cohort Study were followed up for a mean of 4 years. SCD and affective measures were generated from the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) with factor analysis on data from a larger set of 347 healthy, nondepressed (GDS <11) elderly individuals.