The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Episodic Memory Impairment in Mild Cognitive Impairment: Do episodic memory deficits identified at classification remain evident when later examined with different memory tests?

Previous studies of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have been criticised for using the same battery of neuropsychological tests during classification and longitudinal followup.The key concern is that there is a potential circularitywhen the same tests are used to identifyMCI and then subsequentlymonitor change in function over time.The aim of the present studywas to examine the evidence of this potential circularity problem. The present study assessed the memory function of 72 MCI participants and 50 healthy controls using an alternate battery of visual and verbal episodic memory tests 9 months following initial comprehensive screening assessment andMCI classification. Individuals who were classified as multiple-domain amnesticMCI (a-MCI+) at screening show a significantly reduced performance in visual and verbal memory function at followup using a completely different battery of valid and reliable tests. Consistent with their initial classification, those identified as nonamnesticMCI (na-MCI) or control at screening demonstrated the highest performance across the memory tasks. The results of the present study indicate that persistent memory deficits remain evident in amnesticMCI subgroups using alternate memory tests, suggesting that the concerns regarding potential circularity of logicmay be overstated inMCI research.