Factors associated with cognitive impairment in elderly patients with diabetes mellitus.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Nanaka Mogi.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
To validate the Clock Drawing Test (CDT) as a screening method for detecting mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and to find the appropriate scoring protocol and its cutoff point, we compared the sensitivity and specificity of three CDT protocols. Subjects included 219 outpatients with memory complaints, who were attending the geriatric memory clinic. Cahn's protocol, with a cutoff point of 7, was more successful at differentiating clinically diagnosed MCI subjects from normal elderly individuals, with higher sensitivity (74.7%) and specificity (75.6%), than were the other protocols. The CDT, as a handy screening method, may be useful for clinicians to reliably identify subjects with MCI, and it may contribute to early detection of dementia.
We report a case of a 74-year-old woman whose symptoms of dementia may have been caused by sarcoidosis and in whom steroid treatment was effective. The patient, who had recieved treatment for hypertension, started to exhibit symptoms of dementia one year previously and progressively deteriorated during the month before she was admitted. Brain computed tomography showed multiple lacunae infarctions. Chest X-ray showed mild swelling of bilateral lymph nodes in the mediastinum. The patient was referred to an ophthalmologist because of complaints of disturbed visual field, and bilateral uveitis was diagnosed. Negative tuberculin, high serum ACE value and high absorbance in the lung hila on Ga scintigram were recognized. Lymph node biopsy revealed typical granuloma compatible with sarcoidosis. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) showed elevated protein concentration without an increased cell count. EEG showed a diffuse slow wave pattern. We observed the progression of dementia shown by declining scores of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) from 17/30 on admission to 7/30 on day 30 after admission. Although enhanced MRI of the brain showed no typical findings of sarcoidosis, we started treatment with prednisolone (50 mg/day) based on the suspicion that the progression of dementia was caused by sarcoidosis. One month after the start of steroid treatment, we observed gradual improvement of symptoms. The MMSE score increased to 20/30. According to previous reports, elderly sarcoidosis patients relatively rare by show dementia, but sarcoidosis should be considered in the differential diagnosis because steroid treatment can be effective.
The current study was conducted to investigate the cognitive function in Japanese elderly with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Participants included 69 diabetic and 27 nondiabetic subjects (60 to 85 years old). The cognitive functional tests conducted were the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Word Lists Recall (immediate, delayed), Digit Symbol Test (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised [WAIS-R]), and the Stroop Color Word Test. Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) was measured as the index of glycemic control, and information about recent hypoglycemic episodes was gathered by using questionnaires. Student's t test showed that DM subjects had significantly lower scores in the MMSE (P<.01) and Digit Symbol Test (P<.05) than non-DM subjects. The scores of the Digit Symbol Test in diabetes subjects had a significant negative relationship with HbA1c (r=-.433; P<.001), and insulin-use had a significant relationship with the scores of the MMSE and Digit Symbol Test. Subjects in the DM group were further divided by insulin use. Comparison of insulin-treated DM subjects, non-insulin-treated DM subjects, and nondiabetic subjects by analysis of variance followed by Bonferroni's post hoc test showed that insulin-treated DM subjects had significantly lower scores in the MMSE and Digit Symbol Tests than both non-insulin-treated DM subjects (P<.05) and nondiabetic subjects (P<.01). Our study suggests that Japanese elderly DM subjects, especially those with insulin treatment, have poor cognitive function.