Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)

Yates, M., Daly, S., Long, M., Dimity Pond, C., Brodaty, H., Gibson, C., & Low, L.-F. (2024). Mild cognitive impairment and dementia: detection and diagnosis. Medicine Today, 25(5), 20–24.

The 2024 update of the Lancet Commission on dementia provides new hopeful evidence about dementia prevention, intervention, and care. As people live longer, the number of people who live with dementia continues to rise, even as the age-specific incidence decreases in high-income countries, emphasising the need to identify and implement prevention approaches. We have summarised the new research since the 2020 report of the Lancet Commission on dementia, prioritising systematic reviews and meta-analyses and triangulating findings from different studies showing how cognitive and physical reserve develop across the life course and how reducing vascular damage (eg, by reducing smoking and treating high blood pressure) is likely to have contributed to a reduction in age-related dementia incidence. Evidence is increasing and is now stronger than before that tackling the many risk factors for dementia that we modelled previously (ie, less education, hearing loss, hypertension, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption [ie, >21 UK units, equivalent to >12 US units], traumatic brain injury [TBI], air pollution, and social isolation) reduces the risk of developing dementia. In this report, we add the new compelling evidence that untreated vision loss and high LDL cholesterol are risk factors for dementia.
Livingston, G., Huntley, J., Liu, K. Y., Costafreda, S. G., Geir Selbæk, Suvarna Alladi, Ames, D., Banerjee, S., Burns, A., Brayne, C., Fox, N. C., Ferri, C. P., Gitlin, L. N., Howard, R., Kales, H. C., Kivimäki, M., Larson, E. B., Noeline Nakasujja, Rockwood, K., & Samus, Q. (2024). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission. The Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(24)01296-0‌

The results of this study highlight key areas for future public health initiatives, such as a focus on the multitude of benefits offered by adopting a healthy diet and physical exercise in reducing risk of cognitive impairment.
Yemm H, Peel E, Brooker D. “I guess you can interpret it in a number of ways like kind of a milder or the mildest form of dementia?”: Multi-stakeholder perceptions of cognitive impairment. Dementia. 2023;22(8):1799-1818.

Abstract
Prior to the usual clinical symptoms of dementia, there can be subtle changes in cognitive function that differ from the normal age-related cognitive decline, which has been termed mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The increase in the numbers of individuals with possible MCI presenting to health care professionals, notably, General Practitioners (GPs), is going to rise dramatically in the coming years. With ever increasing demands on GPs, it is therefore timely to provide information that can be accessed by health care professionals to assist them in making appropriate diagnoses and to provide the most relevant, evidence-based treatment options. We have provided a comprehensive list of recommendations that aim to address key aspects of MCI in primary care. Specifically, these relate to detection and diagnosis; sharing the diagnosis, monitoring, and follow up; practical interventions to potentially delay progression; and personalizing care-planning, engagement, and patient motivation for the long term.
Woodward, M., Brodaty, H., McCabe, M., Masters, C. L., Naismith, S. L., Morris, P., Rowe, C. C., Walker, P., & Yates, M. (2022). Nationally Informed Recommendations on Approaching the Detection, Assessment, and Management of Mild Cognitive Impairment. Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD, 89(3), 803–809.

Social networks can change with age, for reasons that are adaptive or unwanted. A larger social network is beneficial to both mental health and cognition. Consequently this study explored this association and assessed the mediation of the relationship between mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mood problems by social network size.
Yates, J. A., Clare, L., & Woods, B. (2017). You’ve got a friend in me: can social engagement mediate the relationship between mood and mci? Innovation in Aging, 1(Suppl 1), 1179.

Dementia Care Central website
People who have Mild Cognitive Impairment are often afraid that a noticeable change in their ability to think means they are one step closer to Alzheimer’s disease. This is not necessarily true, however. MCI is not a normal part of aging, but it also does not always lead to full-blown progressive dementia like Alzheimer’s. In fact, in some cases MCI may be reversible.
This page explains MCI, the difference between MCI and dementia, how it compares with the normal aging process, and how to manage symptoms.