• domini cognitivi
• test neuropsicologici
• demenza di Alzheimer
• demenza
• mild cognitive impairment
• frailty
• fragilità

Many risk factors for dementia have been investigated in last years.Frailty is an indicator of the accumulation of health deficits over time as a measure of physiologic vulnerability.Frailty is considered a syndrome that leads to difficulties in daily activities and increased risk for institutionalization and mortality.In cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease frailty is a well known risk factor.
The objective of our study was to investigate the effect on cognition of frailty in patients with MCI.A Neuropsychological assessment was performed for all patients at the first evaluation and within 3years.Data about comorbidity and the ability to carry out daily activities were used to obtain a frailty index at the first evaluation.
In our sample frailty patients presented worse performances in Trail Making Test compared with non frail, indicating that frailty could modulate processing speed/visuomotor abilities and executive functions in MCI patients.The effect of frailty on such domains is related to cognitive impairment associated with dysfunction of the frontal-subcortical circuitry.When the impact of frailty on cognitive decline was stratified due to gender,the follow-up had found a significant difference for males in TMTpartA.
In our sample dementia was prevalent among non frail patients.However the higher prevalence of amnesic forms of MCI,suggesting a possible neurodegenerative substrate, and the short follow-up could limit the frailty’s burden in our sample.