A memory test may be able to predict decline in memory years before symptoms of conditions such as Alzheimer's begin to present, a study suggests.
Memory decline - or cognitive impairment - can be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease, and subsequently dementia.
A new study found that a two-phase test involving cards with drawings of items on them could be useful in predicting memory decline.
The 10-year-long study, published in the Neurology journal, involved 969 people with an average age of 69. None of the participants had thinking or memory problems at the start of the study.
Study author Ellen Grober, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine New York, US, said: "There is increasing evidence that some people with no thinking and memory problems may actually have very subtle signs of early cognitive impairment.
"In our study, a sensitive and simple memory test predicted the risk of developing cognitive impairment in people who were otherwise considered to have normal cognition."
For the first phase of the test, people were shown four cards, each with drawings of four items, and asked to identify the item belonging to a particular category. For example, this could include naming "grapes" after being asked to identify a "fruit".
Phase two saw people asked to recall the items – measuring their ability to retrieve information. For items they did not remember, they were given category cues, a process that measured memory storage.
Based on how they did, the participants were divided into five groups, labelled stages zero through four.
Stage zero represented no memory issues, however those in stage four could not remember all the items even after they were given cues.
A total of 47 percent of the people were in stage zero, 35 percent in stage one, 13 percent in stage two and five percent in stages three and four combined.
According to the research, 234 people involved in the study developed cognitive impairment throughout its course.
Compared to people who were at stage zero, people at stages one and two were twice as likely to develop cognitive impairment and those at stages three and four were three times as likely.
This was after taking into consideration factors like age, sex and a gene that affects a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Prof Grober commented: "Detecting cognitive impairment at its earliest stages is beneficial to researchers investigating treatments.
"It also could benefit those people who are found to be at increased risk by consulting with their physician and implementing interventions to promote healthy brain ageing."
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