An investigation of early cognitive impairment in a longitudinal population based study

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The rising burden of dementia globally is driving the research agenda for the elderly both in terms of prevention and treatment. A window of opportunity for delaying or preventing the onset of dementia probably exists in the few years before functionally disabling cognitive decline occurs and the natural history of conditions that precede dementia has therefore been of interest for some time. Several studies have shown that groups of people with mild cognitive impairments are at higher risk of developing frank dementia than those without, however to date no consistent picture of the population level of this cognitive impairment exists. Despite the relationship between dementia and ageing being intensively studied there are no reliable indicators at the individual level to identify the early stages of dementia. Several operational definitions have been suggested but few have been tested on genuine population samples with sufficient longitudinal data to be confident of their validity. The project outlined here will study the early stages of cognitive impairment using data analysis of the MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing study (CFAS) within a longitudinal context.

The study started in 1991 and has repeated interviews on 13,004 individuals aged over 64 years in five centres in England and Wales. The resource contains both neuropsychological test data (n=~33,000 interviews) and neuropathology data (n=450) with a recent 10-year follow-up interview. The data available for the study can be used to explore the relative value of different definitions of mild cognitive impairment, their prevalence, incidence and long-term prognostic effect.