Daily Living Activities as Indicators of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Subjective Cognitive Decline

Daily Living Activities as Indicators of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Subjective Cognitive Decline

Objectives: With aging, we gradually lose our functional ability which is assessed through understanding the difficulty of doing activities of daily living (ADL). Advanced ADL (AADL) performance steadily worsens with declining cognitive function, followed by instrumental ADL (IADL) performance, and finally, the incapacity to do basic ADLs. In this study, we intended to early identify mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and to focus on understanding the ADLs as an indicator to differentiate between the elderly with MCI and subjective memory complaint (SMC). Methods: The study sample consisted of 30 patients with SMC and MCI, respectively, within the age of 60–80 years with at least eight years of education and being noninstitutionalized. Those patients were divided into the two groups based on the diagnostic criteria. Furthermore, Montreal Cognitive Assessment and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) Scale were used for screening. AADL scale was used for assessing the performance on AADL. Results: The study findings showed that a significant difference existed between the MCI and SMC groups in ADLs (p < 0.05). We also found that significantly higher difficulties in the item in shopping alone for clothes, household necessities, or groceries (p < 0.001), remembering appointments, family occasions, holidays, medications (p < 0.001), preparing a balanced meal (p < 0.01), and assembling tax records, business affairs, and papers (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The study findings indicate that IADLs and AADLs can be considered as indicators of MCI and SCD.