PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - van Wanrooij, Lennard L.
AU  - Richard, Edo
AU  - Jongstra, Susan
AU  - Moll van Charante, Eric P.
AU  - van Gool, Willem A.
TI  - Associations of Subjective Memory Complaints and Simple Memory Task Scores With Future Dementia in the Primary Care Setting
AID  - 10.1370/afm.2443
DP  - 2019 Sep 01
TA  - The Annals of Family Medicine
PG  - 412--418
VI  - 17
IP  - 5
4099  - http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/5/412.short
4100  - http://www.annfammed.org/content/17/5/412.full
SO  - Ann Fam Med2019 Sep 01; 17
AB  - PURPOSE Family physicians need simple yet comprehensive algorithms to discriminate between community-dwelling older persons who are at increased risk of dementia and those who are not. We aimed to investigate associations between incident dementia and responses to a single question regarding subjective memory complaints (SMC) combined with scores on 2 simple memory tests that are easy to use in the primary care setting.METHODS Analyses were based on data from 3,454 community-dwelling older persons who participated in the 6- to 8-year Prevention of Dementia by Intensive Vascular Care (preDIVA) trial, yielding 21,341 person-years of observation. Participants were considered a single cohort. We used Cox models to assess separate and combined associations of SMC, an imperfect score on the Mini-Mental State Examination delayed recall item (MMSE-5), and an imperfect score on the Visual Association Test (VAT) with future dementia.RESULTS Subjective memory complaints alone were associated with future dementia (hazard ratio [HR] = 3.01; 95% CI, 2.31-3.94; P <.001), as were the MMSE-5 (HR = 2.14; 95% CI, 1.59-2.87; P <.001) and VAT (HR = 3.19; 95% CI, 2.46-4.13; P <.001) scores. After a median follow-up of 6.7 years, the occurrence of dementia ranged from 4% to 30% among persons with SMC, depending on the MMSE-5 and VAT scores. These test scores did not substantially alter the association with future dementia for persons without SMC.CONCLUSIONS In persons with SMC, the strength of the association between future dementia and an imperfect MMSE-5 score depends substantially on the VAT score.