Centre for Policy on Ageing



Cognitive decline in ageing — are AAMI and AACD distinct entities?
Author(s)	Marcus Richards, Jacques Touchon, Bernard Ledésert
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 14, no 7, July 1999
Pages	pp 534-540
Keywords	Memory disorders ; Mental ageing ; Evaluation ; France.
Annotation	Two sets of research diagnostic criteria, age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) and ageing-associated cognitive decline (AACD) are widely used to describe mild cognitive decline in ageing. 111 participants without dementia but with informants' evidence of cognitive decline were drawn from the French EUGERIA Study of Cognitive Ageing. Participants were classified as either normal (74) or with AAMI (37) and then reclassified as normal (72) or with AACD (39). Only 20, or 54% of participants with AAMI simultaneously met criteria for AACD, and those with AACD showed more extensive cognitive impairment than those with AAMI. Although there is a large overlap between AAMI and AACD, these findings suggest that AAMI and AACD refer to distinct clinical entities, the latter delineating a more severe state of impairment. This may be largely because AAMI is defined as impairment with reference to young normals, whereas AACD refers to impairment with respect to normal contemporaries. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-990825276 A
Classmark	EH: D6: 4C: 765
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