Abstract
Objective
To devise an Italian version of the quick mild cognitive impairment screen (Qmci) and to obtain normative data.
Methods
An Italian version of the Qmci screen (Qmci-I) was administered to 307 subjects free from cognitive impairment. The normative sample was divided into three age levels (50–59; 60–69 and 70–80 years) and four education levels (3–5; 6–8; 9–13; >13 years of school attendance). Multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the effect of age, sex and schooling on Qmci-I scores (overall and by domains) and to calculate cut-off values, with reference to the confidence interval on the fifth centile.
Results
The mean Qmci-I score was 64/100 (SD = 11). The age variable showed a significant negative effect on the overall Qmci-I score, with older people performing worse than younger ones. Conversely, education was associated with higher scores. Significant effects of age and education affected logical memory alone. For the other domains, the following effects were found: (1) higher age associated with lower scores on delayed recall; (2) higher education levels associated with higher scores on immediate recall, clock drawing and word fluency. The adjusted cut-off score for the Qmci-I screen in this sample was 49.4. Qmci-I scores were weakly correlated with those of MMSE (rho = 0.20).
Conclusions
The Qmci-I is a rapid and multi-domain short cognitive screening instrument useful for evaluating cognitive functions. However, like other screening tools, it is significantly influenced by age and education, requiring normative data and correction of values when used in the clinical practice.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Petersen RC, Smith GE, Waring SC et al (1999) Mild cognitive impairment: clinical characterization an outcome. Arch Neurol 56:303–308
Petersen RC, Lopez O, Armstrong MJ et al (2018) Practice guideline update summary: mild cognitive impairment: report of the guideline development, dissemination, and implementation subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Neurology 90:126–135
Jak AJ, Preis SR, Beiser AS et al (2016) Neuropsychological criteria for mild cognitive impairment and dementia risk in the Framingham Heart Study. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 22:937–943
Petersen RC, Aisen P, Boeve BF et al (2013) Mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer disease in the community. Ann Neurol 74:199–208
Bozoki A, Giordani B, Heidebrink J et al (2001) Mild cognitive impairments predict dementia in nondemented elderly patients with memory loss. Arch Neurol 58:411–416
Farias ST, Mungas D, Reed BR et al (2009) Progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia in clinic-vs community-based cohorts. Arch Neurol 66:1151–1157
Albert MS, DeKosky ST, Dickson D et al (2011) The diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer’s disease: recommendations from the National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer’s Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimers Dement 7:270–279
Michaud TL, Su D, Siahpush M et al (2017) The Risk of incident mild cognitive impairment and progression to dementia considering mild cognitive impairment subtypes. Dement Geriatr Cogn Dis 7:15–29
Tricco AC, Soobiah C, Berliner S et al (2013) Efficacy and safety of cognitive enhancers for patients with mild cognitive impairment: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Can Med Ass J 185:1393–1401
Panegyres PK, Berry R, Burchell J (2016) Early dementia screening. Diagnostics 6:6–12
Fox C, Lafortune L, Boustani M et al (2013) The pros and cons of early diagnosis in dementia. Br J Gen Pract 63:e510–e512
Lonie JA, Tierney KM, Ebmeier KP (2009) Screening for mild cognitive impairment: a systematic review. Int Geriatr Psychiatry 24:902–915
O’Caoimh R, Timmons S, Molloy DW (2016) Screening for mild cognitive impairment: comparison of “MCI specific” screening instruments. J Alzheimer’s Dis 51:619–629
O’Caoimh R, Gao Y, McGlade C et al (2012) Comparison of the quick mild cognitive impairment (Qmci) screen and the SMMSE in screening for mild cognitive impairment. Age Ageing 41:624–629
O’Caoimh R, Gao Y, Gallagher PF et al (2013) Which part of the quickmild cognitive impairment screen (Qmci) discriminates between normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment and dementia? Age Ageing 42:324–330
O’Caoimh R, Svendrovski B, Johnston BC et al (2014) The quick mild cognitive impairment screen correlated with the Standardized Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive section in clinical trials. J Clin Epidem 67:87–92
Bunt S, O’Caoimh R, Krijnen WP et al (2015) Validation of the Dutch version of the quick mild cognitive impairment screen (Qmci-D). BMC Geriatr 15:115. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-015-0113-1
Clarnette R, O’Caoimh R, Antony DN et al (2016) Comparison of the quick mild cognitive impairment (Qmci) screen to the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) in an Australian geriatrics clinic. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 32:643–649
Yavuz BB, Varan HD, O’Caoimh R et al (2017) Validation of the Turkish version of the quick mild cognitive impairment screen. Am J Alzheimer’s Dis Other Dement 32:145–156
Xu Y, Yu Y, Li X et al (2017) Development of the Chinese version of the quick mild cognitive impairment (Qmci-CN). Age Ageing 46(S3):57
Crum RM, Anthony JC, Bassett SS et al (1993) Population-based norms for the mini-mental state examination by age and educational level. Jama 269:2386–2391
Rossetti HC, Lacritz LH, Cullum CM et al (2011) Normative data for the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) in a population-based sample. Neurology 77:1272–1275
O’Caoimh R, Gao Y, Svendovski A et al (2017) Comparing approaches to optimize cut-off scores for short cognitive screening instruments in mild cognitive impairment and dementia. J Alzheimer’s Dis 57:123–133
Measso G, Cavarzeran F, Zappalà G et al (1993) The mini-mental state examination: normative study of an Italian random sample. Dev Neuropsychol 9:77–85
Spinnler H, Tognoni G (1987) Standardizzazione e taratura italiana di test neuropsicologici. Ital J Neurol Sci 6:8–120
Capitani E, Laiacona M (1988) Aging and psychometric diagnosis of intellectual impairment: some considerations on test scores and their use. Dev Neuropsychol 4:325–330
Santangelo G, Siciliano M, Pedone R et al (2015) Normative data for the Montreal cognitive assessment in an Italian population sample. Neurol Sci 36:585–591
Tromp D, Dufour A, Lithfous S et al (2015) Episodic memory in normal aging and Alzheimer disease: insights from imaging and behavioral studies. Ageing Res Rev 24:232–262
Fjell AM, Sneve MH, Grydeland H et al (2015) Functional connectivity change across multiple cortical networks relates to episodic memory changes in aging. Neurobiol Aging 36:3255–3268
Clarnette R, Goh M, Bharadwaj S et al (2018) Screening for cognitive impairment in an australian aged care assessment team as part of comprehensive geriatric assessment. Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn 15:1–12
Roldán-Tapia MD, Cánovas R, León I et al (2017) Cognitive vulnerability in aging may be modulated by education and reserve in healthy people. Front Aging Neurosci 9:340. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2017.00340
Malek-Ahmadi M, Powell JJ, Belden CM et al (2015) Age-and education-adjusted normative data for the Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) in older adults age 70–99. Aging Neuropsychol Cogn 22:755–761
Eckerström M, Göthlin M, Rolstad S et al (2017) Longitudinal evaluation of criteria for subjective cognitive decline and preclinical Alzheimer’s disease in a memory clinic sample. Alzheimer’s Dement Diagn Assess Dis Monit 8:96–107
Illario M, Vollenbroek-Hutten M, Molloy DW et al (2015) Active and healthy ageing and independent living. J Aging Res 2015:542183
Acknowledgements
Michele Arcopinto (Department of Clinical Medicine & Surgery, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy), Patrizia Cuccaro (Research and Development Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Federico II, Naples, Italy), Simona De Chiara (G.P. office, Napoli, Italia), Natascia De Lucia (Department of Neurological, Reproductive and Odontostomatological Sciences, University of Naples “Federico II”, Italia), Carmine Del Giudice (Research and Development Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Federico II, Naples, Italy), Nicola Ferrara (Department of Translational Medical Sciences, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy), Vincenzo Girardi (G.P. office, Napoli, Italia), Iolanda Grimaldi(Research and Development Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Federico II, Naples, Italy), Ilaria Liguori (Department of Translational Medical Sciences, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, Italy), Francesco Orfila Pernas (Institut Universitari d’Investigació en Atenció Primària Jordi Gol, Barcelona, Spagna), Constança Paúl (Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal), Giovanni Tramontano (Research and Development Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria Federico II, Naples, Italy),Francesca Saveria Tripodi (Frullone Geriatric Center, ASL Napoli 1 Centro, Naples, Italy).
Funding
None of the authors received any funding for this work.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Consortia
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Human and animal rights
This study was approved by the local ethics committee and carried out according to the Declaration of Helsinki.
Informed consent
All subjects gave informed consent to the study.
Additional information
The members of the Working Group are provided in the Acknowledgements section.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Iavarone, A., Carpinelli Mazzi, M., Russo, G. et al. The Italian version of the quick mild cognitive impairment (Qmci-I) screen: normative study on 307 healthy subjects. Aging Clin Exp Res 31, 353–360 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-018-0981-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-018-0981-2