Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffMild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an intermediate stage between the expected cognitive decline of normal aging and the more pronounced decline of dementia. It involves problems with memory, language, thinking and judgment that are greater than typical age-related changes. If you have mild cognitive impairment, you may be aware that your memory or mental function has "slipped." And your family and close friends may also notice a change. But generally these changes aren't severe enough to interfere with your day-to-day life and usual activities.
Mild cognitive impairment increases your risk of later developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, especially when your main difficulty is with memory. But some people with mild cognitive impairment never get worse, and a few eventually get better.
- Preventing Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. National Institutes of Health State-of-the-Science Conference Statement. April 26-28, 2010. http://consensus.nih.gov/2010/docs/alz/ALZ_Final_Statement.pdf. Accessed June 25, 2010.
- Petersen RC, et al. Mild cognitive impairment ten years later. Archives of Neurology. 2009;66:1447.
- Roberts RO, et al. Subjective complaints in mild cognitive impairment make a difference. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 2010;21:242.
- Wright JD. Mild cognitive impairment. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed June 28, 2010.
- Winblad B, et al. Mild cognitive impairment — Beyond controversies, towards a consensus. Journal of Internal Medicine. 2004;256:240.
- Petersen RC. Mild cognitive impairment as a diagnostic entity. Journal of Internal Medicine. 2004;256:183.
- Essentials of a diagnostic workup. Alzheimer's Association. http://www.alz.org/professionals_and_researchers_14902.asp. Accessed June 30, 2010.
Find Mayo Clinic on