Differentiating traits and states identifies the importance of chronic neuropsychiatric symptoms for cognitive prognosis in mild dementia.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in dementia are associated with poor cognitive outcomes in longitudinal studies. Whether this is due to differences in symptom burden between persons (BP) or changes within persons (WP) is unknown.

Methods

Patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD, n = 111) and Lewy-body dementia (LBD, n = 85) were assessed annually for 8 years. We modelled the association between NPS assessed by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and Mini-Mental State Examinations (MMSE) using Tobit mixed-effects model with NPS as individual means over time (BP) and its deviance (WP).

Results

The association between higher NPS and poorer cognitive outcomes was mostly due to BP differences for the NPI-total score, and in particular for delusions, halluci

SUBMITTER: Giil LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7896634 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature