An office diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) describes a state of abnormal cognitive functioning that is insufficient to warrant a diagnosis of dementia, While dementia requires that activities of daily functioning be compromised due to cognitive symptomology, the diagnosis of MCI can be made earlier, in the absence of such functional impairment, In MCI, the patient must present with cognitive complaints (or someone who know the patient well must corroborate them), and these complaints must be corroborated by abnormalities on standardized cognitive testing. The diagnosis of MCI alerts the clinician to a higher risk of future development of dementia and provides an ideal target population that may benefit the most from "disease-modifying" cognitive therapies currently in development.