Participants in this study included 93 patients with AD and 43 patients with amnestic MCI (aMCI) who were recruited from the Memory Disorder Clinic at the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, Korea from November 2005 to January 2007. All patients with AD met the criteria for probable AD proposed by the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Diseases and Stroke and Alzheimer's disease and Related Disorders Association (NINCDS-ADRDA) (3 (link)). The aMCI patients were diagnosed according to the criteria proposed by Peterson et al. (4 (link)): 1) subjective memory complaint as described by the patient and/or caregiver, 2) normal general cognitive function, as defined by a score of 24 or greater on the Korean version of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), 3) ability to participate in normal activities of daily living (ADL), judged clinically and by an ADL scale, 4) objective memory decline below the 16th percentile on neuropsychological tests, and 5) non-conformance to clinical criteria for diagnosis of dementia.
All patients underwent a comprehensive evaluation consisting of a detailed medical history, neurological examinations, and a neuropsychological evaluation (SNSB). Additionally, laboratory tests were used to confirm that there were no secondary causes for dementia or cognitive impairment. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was performed on all patients, and all patients with structural brain lesions or severe white matter ischemia (caps or band >10 mm and deep white lesion >25 mm) were excluded. Patients who were illiterate were also excluded, regardless of formal education status.
The normal control (NC) group consisted of 77 healthy spouses or caregivers of patients from the memory disorder clinic. All controls were screened for neurological and psychiatric illnesses, and those who were identified to have any of these illnesses were excluded from the study. All subjects in the NC group met the criteria for healthy controls proposed by Christensen et al. (5 ) and did not have dementia as defined by the score below 8 points on the Korean Dementia Screening Questionnaire (KDSQ) (6 ) as well as by an ADL score less than 8 on Seoul Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (S-IADL) (7 ).
The three groups included in this study did not differ significantly in age, education level, and gender. In terms of Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scores (8 (link)), all participants in the NC group had a CDR score of 0; all patients in the MCI group had a CDR score of 0.5; and of the participants in the AD group 35 had a CDR score of 0.5 (mild stage, 38%), 42 had a CDR score of 1 (mild to moderate stage, 45%), and 16 had a CDR score of 2 (moderate stage, 17%). Among patients with AD, the CDR groups did not differ in age, education level, and gender. We obtained informed consents from all the patients and controls, and this study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Samsung Medical Center (2005-02-008).
All patients underwent a comprehensive evaluation consisting of a detailed medical history, neurological examinations, and a neuropsychological evaluation (SNSB). Additionally, laboratory tests were used to confirm that there were no secondary causes for dementia or cognitive impairment. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) was performed on all patients, and all patients with structural brain lesions or severe white matter ischemia (caps or band >10 mm and deep white lesion >25 mm) were excluded. Patients who were illiterate were also excluded, regardless of formal education status.
The normal control (NC) group consisted of 77 healthy spouses or caregivers of patients from the memory disorder clinic. All controls were screened for neurological and psychiatric illnesses, and those who were identified to have any of these illnesses were excluded from the study. All subjects in the NC group met the criteria for healthy controls proposed by Christensen et al. (5 ) and did not have dementia as defined by the score below 8 points on the Korean Dementia Screening Questionnaire (KDSQ) (6 ) as well as by an ADL score less than 8 on Seoul Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (S-IADL) (7 ).
The three groups included in this study did not differ significantly in age, education level, and gender. In terms of Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scores (8 (link)), all participants in the NC group had a CDR score of 0; all patients in the MCI group had a CDR score of 0.5; and of the participants in the AD group 35 had a CDR score of 0.5 (mild stage, 38%), 42 had a CDR score of 1 (mild to moderate stage, 45%), and 16 had a CDR score of 2 (moderate stage, 17%). Among patients with AD, the CDR groups did not differ in age, education level, and gender. We obtained informed consents from all the patients and controls, and this study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Samsung Medical Center (2005-02-008).
