[Diagnostic criteria for mild cognitive impairment in a cohort of 100 subjects].

Introduction: Tracking can be proposed for subjects with prodromal sates of Alzheimer disease (AD) or people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) at risk to develop dementia who present a memory complaint.

Patients And Methods: We present a cohort of 100 subjects who attended a French memory unit with a diagnostic of MCI. We applied the different definitions used in daily practice. We used the following diagnostic criteria: amnestic MCI (MCIa), multiple domain impairment (MDI), single non-memory dysfunction impairment (SDI), and prodromal Alzheimer's disease (Prod-AD), using only the neuropsychological episodic memory criteria. We also analyzed the population of subjects presenting MCI and vascular risk factors.

Results: Ninety-nine subjects met the criteria of MCIa, 43 met the criteria of isolated MCIa; 56 met the criteria of MDI; one met the criteria of SDI; 40 met the criteria of MAPD; 58 met the criteria of MCI with vascular risk factors.

Discussion: Using the diagnostic criteria of MCI can lead to clinical ambiguity because the population recruited on the bases of memory complaint is highly variable. Moreover, many subjects meet many definitions. This overlap of the classifications further complicates the decision to favor one criterion over another. In clinical practice, a classification system using the concepts of MCI, MDI and SDI seems to be quite operational but cut-offs are necessary for the tests applied, in addition to a clarified choice of which tests to use.