Section for Health Promotion, Department for Research and Development to Support Independent Life of Elderly, Center for Gerontology and Social Science, National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, 35 Gengo, Morioka-machi, Obu, Aichi 474-8511, Japan.
Chem Senses. 2014 Jan;39(1):39-46. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjt052. Epub 2013 Nov 7.
Olfactory impairment constitutes one of the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. We investigated which aspects of neuropsychological measures are correlated with olfactory identification performance among older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Total of 220 participants with mild cognitive impairment (mean age 71.7 years) were examined. Odor identification was assessed using the Open Essence test. Participants underwent comprehensive neurocognitive evaluation, including measures of verbal memory, visual memory, working memory, attention/executive function, and processing speed. We examined associations between olfactory function and cognitive performance scores. Participants with severe hyposmia exhibited significantly poor verbal and visual memory performance, attention/executive function, and slower processing speed scores compared with those without severe hyposmia. In multivariable logistic regression models, better performance scores on verbal and visual memory were significantly associated with decreased likelihood of severe hyposmia after adjusting for age, sex, education, and other cognitive performance scores. These findings suggest that olfactory impairment might be more closely associated with memory loss compared with other aspects of cognitive functioning in mild cognitive impairment subjects.
嗅觉障碍是轻度认知障碍老年人阿尔茨海默病的早期迹象之一。我们研究了轻度认知障碍老年人的嗅觉识别表现与哪些神经心理学测量方面相关。共有 220 名轻度认知障碍患者（平均年龄 71.7 岁）接受了检查。使用 Open Essence 测试评估嗅觉识别能力。参与者接受了全面的神经认知评估，包括语言记忆、视觉记忆、工作记忆、注意力/执行功能和处理速度的测试。我们检查了嗅觉功能和认知表现评分之间的关联。与无严重嗅觉减退的患者相比，严重嗅觉减退患者的语言和视觉记忆、注意力/执行功能以及处理速度评分明显较差。在多变量逻辑回归模型中，调整年龄、性别、教育程度和其他认知表现评分后，语言和视觉记忆的表现评分更好与严重嗅觉减退的可能性降低显著相关。这些发现表明，在轻度认知障碍患者中，与其他认知功能方面相比，嗅觉障碍可能与记忆丧失更为密切相关。
