Abstract
Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) run a higher risk for the development of a dementia. A disturbed awareness of deficits is a symptom of dementia and could be a predictor for the development of dementia in the assessment in the early stages of dementia. This awareness can be assessed by means of the discrepancy between the assessment of memory problems by patient and partner. In this study, the Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE-N) was used to assess the level of awareness. The results show that the discrepancy score (the difference between the IQCODE-Nscore of the patient and the IQCODE-Nscore of the partner) was significantly higher for the 61 MCI-patients when compared to the 40 healthy elderly (p = 0,01). This suggests a diminished awareness in MCI-patients. Analysis of the range of the MCI-group shows that this is true for 60% of the patients. Patients with a disturbed awareness score significantly lower on the MMSE (p < 0,01) than patients with an intact awareness.
