Introduction

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects memory, thinking, attention, and emotion or AD. Smelling problems are frequent symptoms of dementia. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether it is possible to predict if someone with anosmia or hyposmia has a higher risk of getting dementia or even AD.

Methods

This study was a retrospective longitudinal study, and the data used were part of a larger research project, the Vienna Conversion to Dementia Study. The 173 participants were divided into four groups based on cognitive features such as healthy control (HC), subjective cognitive decline (SCD), non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (naMCI), and amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Olfactory assessment and neurocognitive assessment were administered.

Results

We found that 30.5% of aMCI patients converted into AD after an average of about two years. The corresponding ROC analyses for olfactory testing showed that Sniffin’ Sticks revealed significant results regarding the conversion to AD, whereas the Assessment of Self-Reported Olfactory Functioning and olfaction-related quality of life (ASOF) inventory using the Subjective Olfactory Capability (SOC) subscale, the Smell-Related Problems (SRP) subscale, and the Olfaction-Related Quality of life (ORQ) did not. A logistic regression showed that among the olfactory test procedures, only the Sniffin’ Sticks enabled a relevant prognosis. Including neurocognitive measures in the model, only VSRT and the Trail Making Test-B. The other predictors did not contribute to the prediction of conversion to AD.

Conclusion

Unlike self-reporting of olfactory functioning, olfactory testing using standardized tests may have potential for predicting dementia, especially AD. However, olfactory tests have lower predictive power than neurocognitive tests such as verbal memory and divided attention tests.

Implications

Diagnostic tools for predicting dementia as accurately and early as possible are important. Olfactory assessment, compared to neurocognitive tests for verbal memory and divided attention, is inferior in predicting the prognosis of AD.

中文翻译：

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预测转化为阿尔茨海默病的神经认知测试

介绍

阿尔茨海默病 (AD) 是一种影响记忆、思维、注意力和情绪或 AD 的神经退行性疾病。嗅觉问题是痴呆症的常见症状。这项研究的目的是评估是否有可能预测患有嗅觉丧失或嗅觉减退的人患痴呆症甚至 AD 的风险是否更高。

方法

这项研究是一项回顾性纵向研究，所使用的数据是一个更大的研究项目的一部分，即维也纳转化为痴呆症研究。173 名参与者根据健康对照组 (HC)、主观认知衰退 (SCD)、非遗忘性轻度认知障碍 (naMCI) 和遗忘性轻度认知障碍 (aMCI) 等认知特征分为四组。进行了嗅觉评估和神经认知评估。

结果

我们发现 30.5% 的 aMCI 患者在平均约两年后转化为 AD。相应的嗅觉测试 ROC 分析表明，Sniffin' Sticks 揭示了关于转化为 AD 的显着结果，而使用主观嗅觉能力 (SOC) 子量表评估自我报告的嗅觉功能和嗅觉相关生活质量 (ASOF) 清单、气味相关问题 (SRP) 子量表和嗅觉相关生活质量 (ORQ) 没有。逻辑回归表明，在嗅觉测试程序中，只有 Sniffin' Sticks 能够实现相关的预后。在模型中包括神经认知测量，只有 VSRT 和 Trail Making Test-B。其他预测因子对转化为 AD 的预测没有贡献。

结论

与嗅觉功能的自我报告不同，使用标准化测试的嗅觉测试可能具有预测痴呆症，尤其是 AD 的潜力。然而，嗅觉测试的预测能力低于语言记忆和分散注意力测试等神经认知测试。

启示

尽可能准确和尽早预测痴呆症的诊断工具很重要。与语言记忆和注意力分散的神经认知测试相比，嗅觉评估在预测 AD 的预后方面较差。