Cristina Lojo-Seoane

University of Santiago de Compostela | USC · Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación

Purpose A systematic review of the use of the CASP Quality of Life (QoL) scale in older adults was carried out. Methods Articles were searched using PsycINFO, Web of Science (WOS), Scopus and Medline databases. Observational or experimental studies using any version of the CASP to analyze QoL in adults aged 50 and over and studies focusing on the...

Objective:Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) is a validated diagnostic entity, that describes the emergence of later life neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in pre-dementia states. The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of MBI in people with subjective cognitive complains (SCCs) in primary care centers and observe the evolution in a longit...

Objective:The relationship between objective cognitive performance and physical frailty has been explored in the recent literature and cognitive frailty has emerged as a strong field of study in psychogerontology. However, less is known about the relationship between subjective cognitive status and physical frailty. The aim of this communication is...

Objective To analyze the validity of self and informant reports, depressive symptomatology, and some sociodemographic variables to predict the risk of cognitive decline at different follow-up times. Methods A total of 337 participants over 50 years of age included in the CompAS and classified as Cognitively Unimpaired (CU), Subjective Cognitive De...

Background Self‐, informant reports and also depressive symptoms can predict the risk of cognitive decline. Our aim was to study the joint contribution of complaint reporting and depression to progression along the cognitive decline continuum to dementia. Method A total of 246 participants [Cognitively Unimpaired (CU): n = 144; Subjective Cognitiv...

Background Cognitive frailty (CF) has been defined as the simultaneous presence of physical frailty (PF) and subjective or objective cognitive impairment, with current definitions differentiating, respectively, between reversible and potentially reversible CF. The former is indicated by subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and the latter by Mild Cogn...

Episodic memory (EM), one of the most commonly assessed cognitive domains in aging, is useful for identifying pathological processes such as mild cognitive impairment and dementia. However, EM tests must be culturally adapted, and the influence of sociodemographic variables analyzed, to provide cut-off points that enable correct diagnosis. The aim...

Objective: Verbal fluency tests are quick and easy to administer neuropsychological measures and are regularly used in neuropsychological assessment. Additionally, phonological fluency is a widely used paradigm that is sensitive to cognitive impairment. This paper offers normative data of phonological verbal fluency (letters P, M, R) for Spanish m...

Background The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI‐C) (Ismail et al., 2017) is a 34‐item scale that evaluates Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) in pre‐dementia states. Its underlying structure has been little studied and remains largely unknown. Factor analysis‐based approaches may have difficulty finding stable relationships between NPS collec...

Objective: This paper reports normative data for different attentional tests obtained from a sample of middle-aged and older native Spanish adults and considering effects of age, educational level and sex. Method: 2,597 cognitively intact participants, aged from 50 to 98 years old, participated voluntarily in the SCAND consortium studies. The stati...

IntroductionSubjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) can progress to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia and thus may represent a preclinical stage of the AD continuum. However, evidence about structural changes observed in the brain during SCD remains inconsistent.Materials and methodsThis cross-sectional study aimed to...

The validity of Subjective Cognitive Complaints (SCCs) from dyadic patterns to predict progression to dementia is not yet clear. Some studies suggest that the validity of informant report in predicting dementia increases as cognitive function and awareness of symptoms decline. Our aim was to compare validity of informant and participant reports, an...

Experiments on event-related electroencephalographic oscillations in aged people typically include blocks of cognitive tasks with a few minutes of interval between them. The present exploratory study tested the effect of being engaged on cognitive tasks over the resting state cortical arousal after task completion, and whether it differs according...

Cognitive Reserve (CR) is considered as one protective factor during the aging process. However, although CR is a multifactorial construct, it has been operationalised in a unitary way (years of formal education or IQ). In the present study, a validated measure to categorize CR holistically (Cognitive Reserve Index Questionnaire) was used to evalua...

Introduction This study aimed to evaluate, in adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), the brain atrophy that may distinguish between three AT(N) biomarker-based profiles, and to determine its clinical value. Methods Structural MRI (sMRI) was employed to evaluate the volume and cortical thickness differences in MCI patients with different AT(N...

Objective: Semantic verbal fluency constitutes a good candidate for identifying cognitive impairment. This paper offers normative data of different semantic verbal fluency tests for middle-aged and older adults natives from Spain considering sociodemographic factors, and different measures for each specific category (number of words produced, erro...

Background Severity of the neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) is expected to have a negative impact on IADL, adding to the effect that cognitive decline can have and could lead to further impairment of functionality. Our objective was to analyze differences in IADL between two longitudinal evaluations in SCC participants with null, intermediate, or hi...

Background Subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) are a risk factor to dementia. Self‐ and informant‐reports may have different predictive validity along the cognitive decline continuum. We aimed to analyze longitudinal differences between self‐ and informant‐reports in stable(‐s) and worsening(‐w) SCD and MCI participants, and the predictive value...

Background: Cognitive training has been found to be effective in preventing and delaying cognitive decline in MCI and early dementia, and gains could be enhanced with transcranial electrical stimulation (tDCS). Cognitive-training applications (app) allow remote interventions, optimize the cost-benefit ratio, and a continuous monitoring. Most of ap...

INVENTHEI (INnoVation and ENTrepreneurship in Higher Education Institutions) is an European project aimed to enhance the regional innovation ecosystems and promote innovation-driven research. In Spain, the University of Santiago de Compostela participates through the Master’s Degree in Psychogerontology (Faculty of Psychology) and the Master’s Degr...

Background: The presence of subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) is a core criterion for diagnosis of subjective cognitive decline (SCD); however, no standard procedure for distinguishing normative and non-normative SCCs has yet been established. Objective: To determine whether differentiation of participants with SCD according to SCC severity...

Background: Detecting cognitive impairment is a priority for health systems. The aim of this study is to create normative data on screening tests (MMSE, GDS and MFE) for middle-aged and older Spanish adults, considering the effects of sociodemographic factors. Method: A total of 2,030 cognitively intact subjects who lived in the community, aged...

Background Neurobehavioral Symptoms (NPS) have been usually measured with the Neuropsychiatric‐Inventory (NPI‐Q) (Kaufer et al., 2000) in pre‐dementia individuals. However, this instrument was designed to dementia states. The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI‐C) (Ismail et al., 2017) is an instrument developed to evaluate NPS in pre‐dementi...

Background Characterization of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) for clinical and research purposes involves identification of biological and neuropsychological markers in order to predict possible progression to dementia. The main aim of this work was to analyze the correlation of anthropometric measurements and plasmatic levels of leptin, testoster...

Background Presence of significant subjective complaints about cognition (SCD) is considered the first behavioral manifestation of Alzheimer disease (AD). However, SCD has not yet overcome the challenge of becoming a reliable preclinical AD marker. Severity indices were proposed to improve the accuracy of complaints when predicting the risk of AD (...

Background Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), clinically considered an intermediate state between the cognitive changes of normal aging and early dementia (Petersen, 2016), progress frequently to Alzheimer´s clinical syndrome. Alzheimer Disease (AD) biomarkers are used to evaluate the etiology and progression of MCI. In this study, we evaluated wheth...

Introduction: To understand the potential influence of diversity on the measurement of functional impairment in dementia, we aimed to investigate possible bias caused by age, gender, education, and cultural differences. Methods: A total of 3571 individuals (67.1 ± 9.5 years old, 44.7% female) from The Netherlands, Spain, France, United States, U...

Background Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), as a stage in the cognitive continuum between normal ageing and dementia, is mainly characterized by memory impairment. The aims of this study were to examine CANTAB measures of temporal changes of visual memory in MCI and to evaluate the usefulness of the baseline scores for predicting changes in cogniti...

Background The Tip-of-the-Tongue (ToTs) state is considered a universal phenomenon and is a frequent cognitive complaint in old age. Previous cross-sectional studies have found that ToT measures successfully discriminate between cognitively unimpaired adults and adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). The aim of this study was to identify long...

INTRODUCTION: To understand the potential influence of diversity on the measurement of functional impairment in dementia, we aimed to investigate possible bias caused by age, gender, education, and cultural differences. METHODS: 3,571 individuals (67.1 +- 9.5 years old, 44.7% female) from the Netherlands, Spain, France, United States, United Kingdo...

(1) Background: Early identification of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in people reporting subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) and the study of progression of cognitive decline are important issues in dementia research. This paper examines whether empirically derived procedures predict progression from MCI to dementia. (2) Methods: At baseline,...

Objective To study the influence of cognitive reserve (CR) on cognitive performance of individuals with subjective cognitive complaints (SCCs) within a period of 36 months. Design We used a general linear model repeated measures procedure to analyze the differences in performance between three assessments. We used a longitudinal structural equatio...

(1) Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a diagnostic label in which stability is typically low. The aim of this study was to examine temporal changes in the diagnosis of MCI subtypes by using an overlapping-time strategy; (2) Methods: The study included 435 participants aged over 50 years with subjective cognitive complaints and who comp...

Objectives To use a Machine Learning (ML) approach to compare Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) in participants of a longitudinal study who developed dementia and those who did not. Design Mann-Whitney U and ML analysis. Nine ML algorithms were evaluated using a 10-fold stratified validation procedure. Performance metrics (accuracy, recall, F-1 scor...

Objectives: To use a Machine Learning (ML) approach to compare Neuropsychiatric Symptoms (NPS) in participants of a longitudinal study who developed dementia and those who did not. Design: Mann-Whitney U and ML analysis. Nine ML algorithms were evaluated using a 10-fold stratified validation procedure. Performance metrics (accuracy, recall, F-1 sco...

Objectives The overall aim of the present study was to explore the role of Cognitive Reserve (CR) in the conversion from Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to dementia. We used traditional and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to compare converter and non‐converter participants. We also discuss the predictive value of CR proxies in relation to the ML m...

The authors regret: A calculation error was detected in algorithm to obtain score norms showed in Table 3. A predicted value for education was wrongly introduced, slightly affecting the normative scores.

Background: Instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) are complex activities which involve multiple cognitive processes, and which are expected to be susceptible to the early effects of cognitive impairment. Informant-based questionnaires are the most common tools used to assess IADL performance in dementia, but must be adjusted for use in ea...

Background: Neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) are non-cognitive, behavioral, or psychiatric symptoms, common in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and associated with a higher risk of dementia. Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) is a validated diagnostic entity, that describes the emergence of later life NPS in pre-dementia states. The Mild Behavioral Im...

Objectives To estimate the prevalence of Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI) in people with Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD), and validate the Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C) with respect to score distribution, sensitivity, specificity, and utility for MBI diagnosis, as well as correlation with other neuropsychological tests. Design Co...

Objective: Analyze the effects of CR on cognitive performance in adults with subjective cognitive complaints at follow-up. Method: We analyzed the factorial structure of the three constructs defined in cognitive performance (Episodic memory, Working memory, and General cognitive performance) separately to search for evidence of the invariance of th...

Objectives: To identify learning effects and meaningful changes in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) at a follow-up assessment. Method: The Spanish version of the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) was administered to a sample of 274 adults of age over 50 years with subjective memory complains (SMC), including single and multiple domain...

Introduction The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is widely used to screen patients with suspected mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Spanish normative scores are provided for age and educational level. Materials and methods The MoCA was administered to 628 adult community members aged between 50 and 97 years. After exclusion of participants sus...

Objectives Attrition is one of the greatest difficulties in longitudinal studies on cognitive ageing because of the associated risk of underestimating declines. The aims of this paper were to characterize the magnitude and selectivity of attrition in a study of mild cognitive impairment. Design Forty two patients with multiple-domain amnestic MCI,...

Background: The Cambridge Cognitive Examination-Revised (CAMCOG) is widely used in clinical, epidemiological and research studies, but normative scores for age and educational level have not yet been established in the Spanish population. Method: The CAMCOG-R was administered to 730 adult members ofthe community, aged between 50-97 years, living...

Although visual memory has been shown to be impaired in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), the differences between MCI subtypes are not well defined. The current study attempted to investigate visual memory profiles in different MCI subtypes. One hundred and seventy volunteers aged older than 50 years performed several visual memory tests i...

El presente trabajo estudia el papel del vocabulario, como indicador de reserva cognitiva, en la evaluación del Deterioro Cognitivo Ligero (DCL). Participaron 326 adultos mayores de 50 años, clasificados en dos grupos, uno de 104 participantes con DCL y otro de 222 controles sanos. Se analizaron las diferencias en las puntuaciones obtenidas en dist...

Although visual recognition memory and visuospatial paired associates learning has been shown to be impaired in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), the sensitivity and specificity of the visual memory tests used to identify aMCI are not well defined. The current study attempted to analyze the sensitivity and specificity of three visual episo...

Cognitive reserve (CR) is often operationally defined as a complex structure of latent variables. Here, we present a structural model that analyzes the effect of CR on three cognitive domains: episodic memory, working memory, and general cognitive performance. We developed and analyzed a structural equation model (SEM) to study CR and cognitive per...

Background: Difficulty in retrieving people's names is very common in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment. Such difficulty is often observed as the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon. The main aim of this study was to explore whether a famous people's naming task that elicited the TOT state can be used to discrimi...

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) often includes episodic memory impairment, but can also involve other types of cognitive decline. Although previous studies have shown poorer performance of MCI patients in working memory (WM) span tasks, different MCI subgroups were not studied. Methods: In the present exploratory study, 145 participa...

To examine the prevalence and correlates of mild cognitive impairment in adults aged over 50 years attending primary care centers with complaints of cognitive failure. A sample of 689 individuals aged ≥50 years with no previous diagnosis of dementia was assessed by use of the Mini-Mental State Examination, the Cambridge Cognitive Examination-Revise...

Aim: To examine the prevalence and correlates of mild cognitive impairment in adults over 50 years old attending primary care centres with complaints of cognitive failure. Methods: A sample of 689 individuals aged 50+ years with no previous diagnosis of dementia was assessed by use of the Mini Mental State Examination, the CAMCOG-R and the Californ...

Difficulty in recalling people's names is very common in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Recent studies using tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) tasks have shown that impaired naming of famous people by amnestic MCI patients is associated with difficulties in accessing the phonological representations of the nam...

An in-depth review is presented of the role that cognitive reserve plays in the emergence of (mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and its progression to dementia by using different indicators. The studies reviewed provide support to the hypothesis that the reserve influences the manifestation of symptoms of cognitive impairment and at least partially,...

To examine the prevalence and correlates of cognitive impairment (CI) in adults over 50 years old attending primary care centres with complaints of memory failure. A sample of 580 individuals aged 50+ years with no previous diagnosis of dementia was assessed by use of the Mini Mental State Examination, the Cambridge Cognitive Assessment-Revised and...

An in-depth review is presented of the role that cognitive reserve plays in the emergence of (mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and its progression to dementia by using different indicators. The studies reviewed provide support to the hypothesis that the reserve influences the manifestation of symptoms of cognitive impairment and at least partially,...