High Risk of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Elderly Patients with Cardiovascular Disease.

Objective: Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are showing an increasing incidence in the older adults and are frequently associated with higher risk of neurological complications in this population. Research on mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in elderly patients with CVD is extremely scarce. The aims of this research were to: (a) examine the frequency of MCI in CVD patients (aged 65 years or older) and explore their clinical and cognitive characteristics compared to healthy controls (HC); (b) investigate which components of the cognitive performance and clinical characteristics are better predictors of MCI.

Method: This observational study included 34 CVD patients (mean age = 74.97; SD = 4.96) and 25 HC (mean age = 73.32; SD = 3.72). All participants underwent neuropsychological assessment. MCI diagnosis was established following clinical diagnostic criteria. Cognitive impairment was defined as performance ≤1.5 SD below the HC mean in neuropsychological tests. Relative risk, random forest regression models, and discriminant analysis were used for the prediction analysis.

Results: The results showed that 41.2% of the CVD patients who were diagnosed with MCI. CVD-MCI showed an altered performance in all cognitive domains, with more relevance of visuospatial functions, language and verbal memory. Moreover, visuospatial functions and memory were significant predictors of MCI diagnosis.

Conclusions: These findings indicate a high frequency of MCI in elderly patients with CVD, characterized by a heterogeneous pattern of cognitive impairment. These results are highly relevant for future investigations, considering increasing life expectancy, the high incidence of CVD in the older adults and the higher risk of neurological complications associated with this population.