Symptoms underlying unawareness of memory impairment in patients with mild Alzheimer's disease

Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are often unaware of their cognitive impairment. This unawareness might have a multifactorial etiology, including impairment of cognitive domains and psychiatric symptoms. We conducted this study to determine the factors underlying unawareness of memory impairment (UMI) in patients with AD. In 103 patients with mild AD, the UMI was quantified as the difference between the patient's self-rating and the rating of the patient's caregiver on a standardized memory questionnaire system, the Everyday Memory Checklist. We then examined the relationships between UMI and memory, attention, language, visuospatial/constructive perception, frontal lobe function, and psychiatric symptoms. UMI was positively associated with memory impairment and delusions when effects of age, sex, and education were partialled out, suggesting that these symptoms are involved in the formation of UMI in the patients. Thus, existing treatments for memory impairment and delusions may be beneficial for increasing the awareness of mild AD patients of their cognitive impairment.