A Cross-sectional Questionnaire Survey Of Cognitive Impairment In The Neurology Clinic

Objective To get an overall situation of cognitive impairment of the patients in the neurology clinic, and to find the method of early diagnosis by the clinical analysis of etiology of cognitive impairment.Methods All the patients in the neurology clinic of Shandong Province Hospital from September 15,2009 to December 25,2009 were included into survey. Those who were more than 55 years old, or came to clinic for the problem of memory or cognitive impairment but not due to mental retardation, or had a history of cerebrovascular diseases, should get a test of IQCODE. Patients given the scores less than 3.3 should be checked with MMSE. The threshold of MMSE scores depends on the level of education. Patients with the MMSE scores lower than responding threshold should be noted down details of demographic characteristics, history, results of physical examinations and neuropsychological examinations. Diagnosis then was made according to criteria and radiographic results. Patients were grouped according to the diagnosis and the scores in neuropsychological tests of groups are analyzed statistically.Results Among all the patients in neurology clinic,5.34%o had cognitive impairment. MCI patients account for 3.0‰and dementia patients 2.3‰. VCI take 57.1%the reason of cognitive impairment. Compared with MCI, dementia patients did worse in all neuropsychological examinations (P<0.05). AD patients got lower scores than VD in short-term memory examinations (P<0.05).There is no significant difference between the scores of MCI-A and MCI-V groups. Conclusion In neurology clinic, patients of VCI take the majority of all the cognitive impairment patients, more than AD and MCI-A. Tests of short-term memory may be useful in differentiating AD from VD.