Insight into memory and functional abilities in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment

Lisa Anne Chudoba

doi:10.7273/000004071

Objective: The current study aimed to add to the sparse existing literature on insight in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) by assessing self-awareness, self-monitoring, and a new self-updating construct of insight in individuals with aMCI. Understanding the degree of insight that individuals with cognitive impairment have into their abilities is important, as insight promotes engagement in rehabilitation and implementation of compensatory strategies. Method: A performance discrepancy paradigm was used to assess insight into verbal memory abilities and functional abilities. Individuals with aMCI and healthy older adults (HOAs) completed a list-learning task in a laboratory setting, and a naturalistic task of everyday functioning in a campus apartment. Participants made predictions about performance on these tasks prior to task experience (self-awareness), immediately after task experience (self-monitoring), and after a delay (self-updating). Results: Individuals with aMCI exhibited intact self-awareness, exhibiting insight into how their memory difficulties might impact their performance relative to an age-normed peer and HOAs by predicting their performance accordingly. They successfully self-monitored while engaging in the tasks, improving the accuracy of their predictions following task experience similar to HOAs. Furthermore, they were able to maintain this improved accuracy in predictions over a long delay, indicating an ability to self-update. Correlations among the insight constructs suggested that information learned about task success and failure during the task was related to an updated self-concept that differed from pre-experience beliefs about the self. Exploratory correlations revealed that constructs of insight were not related to neuropsychological domains of interest, indicating different processes may underlie these domains and metamemory abilities related to insight. Discussion: For both memory and functional task abilities, when compared to HOAs, individuals with aMCI exhibited intact self-awareness, self-monitoring, and self-updating. Further, these constructs of insight remained intact despite the aMCI group exhibiting poorer performance on neurocognitive tests, suggesting self-reported cognitive complaints are likely to be accurate. These findings suggest that, even as memory and executive systems degrade in aMCI, connections between brain regions may allow insight into difficulties to remain intact prior to decline into dementia, enabling adoption of cognitive strategies to ameliorate the difficulties they are experiencing due to aMCI.

Insight into memory and functional abilities in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details