Subjective Cognitive Decline Tied to Incident Dementia in Black, Latinx Individuals

THURSDAY, Dec. 1, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) seems to be a marker of future progression to dementia, especially among Latinx and non-Latinx Black individuals, according to a study published online Nov. 30 in Neurology.

Silvia Chapman, Ph.D., from the Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, and colleagues examined the utility of SCD as a marker of future progression to dementia in a community-based cohort of non-Latinx White, non-Latinx Black, and Latinx individuals enrolled from the Washington Heights-Inwood Columbia Aging Project. Data were included for 4,043 participants (1,063 non-Latinx White; 1,267 non-Latinx Black; and 1,713 Latinx) with a mean age of 75 years.

The researchers found that in the full sample, higher baseline SCD was associated with increased rates of incident dementia over time (hazard ratio, 1.085); increased rates of incident dementia were also seen for Latinx and Black individuals (hazard ratios, 1.084 and 1.099, respectively).

“These results show that subjective cognitive decline may serve as an early marker of dementia and support the idea that subjective cognitive decline contributes information beyond standard memory testing,” Chapman said in a statement.

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