Neuropsychiatric symptoms in cognitively normal older persons, and the association with Alzheimer’s and non-Alzheimer’s dementia

Liew, Tau Ming

doi:10.1186/s13195-020-00604-7

Alzheimer's Research & Therapy

Table 5 Associations between the neuropsychiatric symptoms (affective, agitation, and psychotic symptoms) and the longitudinal changes in the Z-scores of the neuropsychological tests

From: Neuropsychiatric symptoms in cognitively normal older persons, and the association with Alzheimer’s and non-Alzheimer’s dementia

Neuropsychological tests (Z-score)	Cognitive domains	Sample size	Presence of affective symptoms^a		Presence of agitation symptoms^a		Presence of psychotic symptoms^a
Neuropsychological tests (Z-score)	Cognitive domains	Sample size	Regression coefficient (95% CI)^b	p value	Regression coefficient (95% CI)^b	p value	Regression coefficient (95% CI)^b	p value
Global Z-score	Global	5380	− 0.08 (− 0.12, − 0.04)	< 0.001	− 0.08 (− 0.12, − 0.03)	0.001	− 0.25 (− 0.44, − 0.06)	0.010
Benson Complex Figure Copy	Visuospatial	6304	− 0.08 (− 0.15, – 0.01)	0.030	− 0.07 (− 0.15, 0.01)	0.069	− 0.19 (− 0.67, 0.29)	0.431
Craft Story 21 Immediate Recall^c	Immediate memory	5520	− 0.14 (− 0.22, − 0.06)	< 0.001	− 0.02 (− 0.11, 0.06)	0.608	− 0.33 (− 0.75, 0.09)	0.121
Craft Story 21 Delayed Recall^c	Delayed memory	5517	− 0.18 (− 0.26, − 0.10)	< 0.001	− 0.05 (− 0.14, 0.04)	0.284	− 0.52 (− 0.86, − 0.18)	0.003
Benson Complex Figure Recall	Delayed memory	6289	− 0.10 (− 0.17, − 0.03)	0.006	− 0.10 (− 0.19, − 0.02)	0.017	− 0.27 (− 0.58, 0.04)	0.092
Multilingual Naming Test	Language	5501	− 0.07 (− 0.16, 0.02)	0.106	− 0.10 (− 0.20, − 0.00)	0.041	− 0.73 (− 1.17, − 0.28)	0.001
Verbal Fluency–Animal	Language	12,418	− 0.09 (− 0.13, − 0.05)	< 0.001	− 0.06 (− 0.11, − 0.02)	0.007	− 0.10 (− 0.28, 0.08)	0.264
Verbal Fluency–L-words	Language	6298	0.00 (− 0.06, 0.07)	0.938	− 0.11 (− 0.18, − 0.03)	0.004	− 0.13 (− 0.42, 0.15)	0.368
Number Span Test Forward	Attention	5532	− 0.04 (− 0.11, 0.03)	0.253	− 0.10 (− 0.18, − 0.02)	0.014	− 0.20 (− 0.52, 0.12)	0.217
Number Span Test Backward	Attention	5531	− 0.04 (− 0.11, 0.03)	0.270	− 0.13 (− 0.21, − 0.05)	0.001	− 0.16 (− 0.50, 0.18)	0.350
Trail Making Test Part A	Processing speed	11,327	− 0.11 (− 0.15, – 0.07)	< 0.001	− 0.04 (− 0.09, 0.00)	0.061	− 0.30 (− 0.46, − 0.14)	< 0.001
Trail Making Test Part B	Executive function	11,249	− 0.11 (− 0.15, − 0.07)	< 0.001	− 0.07 (− 0.12, − 0.03)	0.001	− 0.29 (− 0.45, − 0.14)	< 0.001

CI confidence interval
^aAffective symptoms included depression, anxiety, and apathy. Agitation symptoms included disinhibition, agitation, and irritability. Psychotic symptoms included delusions and hallucinations
^bModel adjusted for baseline variables of age, sex, ethnicity, years of education, APOE e4 status, and use of antidepressants. Significant estimates (with p ≤ 0.05) are highlighted in bold
^cFor this outcome measure, the “exchangeable covariance” was used in the mixed linear regression because the model could not converge when the “unstructured covariance” was used

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ISSN: 1758-9193

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