ABSTRACT
The term “mild cognitive impairment” was introduced by Flicker, Ferris, and Reisberg (1991) and colleagues in a paper showing that patients with mild cognitive deficits, as determined by clinical evaluation and objective psychological testing, manifested the progressive mental deterioration characteristic of dementia. The mild cognitive impairment (MCI) concept was further developed by Petersen, Smith, Waring, Ivnik, Kokmen, and Tangalos (1997), using research in specialized clinical settings, to characterize people in transition from a normal state to the demented stage of Alzheimers’ disease (AD). The definition of MCI has since become extended to describe people in a predemented stage of other types of dementia. Since most studies depend on people visiting memory centers, there is a definite need to analyze the validity of this theoretical construct in the population at large; this will prove particularly important when drugs that can stop the evolution of people at risk do finally become available. Such people will then have to be detected within the general population and not only among memory clinic patients.
