Abstract
Aims: To find out whether neuropsychiatric comorbidity (comMCI) influences spatial navigation performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).Methods: We recruited aMCI patients with (n=21) and without (n=21) neuropsychiatric comorbidity or alcohol abuse, matched for global cognitive impairment and cognitively healthy elderly participants (HE, n=22). They completed the Mini-Mental State Examination and a virtual Hidden Goal Task in egocentric, allocentric, and delayed recall subtests.Results: In allocentric navigation, aMCI and comMCI performed significantly worse than HE and similarly to each other.
Although aMCI performed significantly worse at egocentric navigation than HE, they performed significantly better than patients with comMCI.Conclusions: Despite the growing burden of dementia and the prevalence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in the elderly population, comMCI remains under-studied. Since trials often assess pure aMCI, we may underestimate patients' navigation and other deficits.
This finding emphasizes the importance of taking account of the cognitive effects of psychiatric disorders in aMCI.