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 the California Verbal Learning Test - to evaluate CI-dependent variables - and administration of a questionnaire on memory complaints and other instruments - to measure correlates. The prevalence of CI was 46.20% and positive associations were found for age, gender, level of education, subjective memory complaints, instrumental activities of daily living, reading habits and frequency of leisure activities. In the logistic regression, modelled CI was associated with older age, gender (49.12% women, 39.66% men), instrumental activities of daily living, and reading habits. Almost half of the adults aged 50+ years attending primary care centres with subjective memory complaints were affected by CI. Early evaluation of cognitive functioning is essential to establish adequate preventive and intervention strategies.

Cognitive frailty (CF) is a topic of growing interest with implications for the study of preventive interventions in aging. Nevertheless, little research has been done to assess the influence of psychosocial variables on the risk of CF. Our objectives were to estimate the prevalence of CF in a Spanish sample and to explore the influence of psychosocial variables in this prevalence. Physical frailty and cognitive, functional, psychosocial, and socio-demographic aspects were assessed in a sample of 285 participants over 60 years. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were carried out. A prevalence of 21.8% (95% CI 17.4–26.9) was established when both frail and pre-frail conditions were included, and a prevalence of 3.2% (95% CI 1.7–5.9) if only frail individuals were considered. Age, educational level, profession and psychological well-being variables significantly predicted CF. Frailty and pre-frailty are high-prevalence health conditions in older adults influenced by socio-demographic, socio-educative and affective factors.

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 cognitive status.Methods: The study included 201 participants aged over 50 years with subjective cognitive complaints. Visual memory was assessed with four CANTAB tests [paired associates learning (PAL), delayed matching to sample (DMS), pattern recognition memory (PRM) and spatial span (SSP)] administered at baseline and on two further occasions, with a follow-up interval of 18–24 months. Participants were divided into three groups according to the change in their cognitive status: participants with subjective cognitive complaints who remained stable, MCI participants who remained stable (MCI-Stable) and MCI participants whose cognitive deterioration continued (MCI-Worsened). Linear mixed models were used to model longitudinal changes, with evaluation time as a fixed variable, and multinomial regression models were used to predict changes in cognitive status.Results: Isolated significant effects were obtained for age and group with all CANTAB tests used. Interactions between evaluation time and group were identified in the PAL and DMS tests, indicating different temporal patterns depending on the changes in cognitive status. Regression models also indicated that CANTAB scores were good predictors of changes in cognitive status.Conclusions: Decline in visual memory measured by PAL and DMS tests can successfully distinguish different types of MCI, and considered together PAL, DMS, PRM and SSP can predict changes in cognitive status.

Elderly people experience more failures in word form access (tip-of-the-tongue events, ‘TOTs’) than young people. There is general agreement that TOTs are signs of cognitive decline in older people, but because of the diversity and ambiguity involved in measuring TOTs, certain questions regarding age-related trends in semantic access remain unsolved. Age-related increases in vocabulary may raise the level of efficiency of access to semantic representations and compensate for lexical access failures. We explore the relationships between lexical knowledge and lexical retrieval in ageing by re-examining the data obtained by Juncos-Rabadán et al. on TOTs induced in 140 volunteers aged from 19 to 82 years. We found that older adults displayed significantly more difficulty in accessing the phonological representations of personal names, but not those of common nouns. The results revealed greater semantic access efficiency in older participants. We discuss the findings in light of the transmission deficit theory of TOT production.