Relational memory and self-efficacy measures reveal distinct profiles of subjective memory concerns in older adults.

OBJECTIVE Subjective memory concerns (SMCs) in healthy older adults are associated with future decline and can indicate preclinical dementia. However, SMCs may be multiply determined, and often correlate with affective or psychosocial variables rather than with performance on memory tests. Our objective was to identify sensitive and selective methods to disentangle the underlying causes of SMCs. METHOD Because preclinical dementia pathology targets the hippocampus, we hypothesized that performance on hippocampally dependent relational memory tests would correlate with SMCs. We thus administered a series of memory tasks with varying dependence on relational memory processing to 91 older adults, along with questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety, and memory self-efficacy. We used correlational, regression, and mediation analyses to compare the variance in SMCs accounted for by these measures. RESULTS Performance on the task most dependent on relational memory processing showed a stronger negative association with SMCs than did other memory performance metrics. SMCs were also negatively associated with memory self-efficacy. These 2 measures, along with age and education, accounted for 40% of the variance in SMCs. Self-efficacy and relational memory were uncorrelated and independent predictors of SMCs. Moreover, self-efficacy statistically mediated the relationship between SMCs and depression and anxiety, which can be detrimental to cognitive aging. CONCLUSIONS These data identify multiple mechanisms that can contribute to SMCs, and suggest that SMCs can both cause and be caused by age-related cognitive decline. Relational memory measures may be effective assays of objective memory difficulties, while assessing self-efficacy could identify detrimental affective responses to cognitive aging. (PsycINFO Database Record

[1]  A. Hofman,et al.  Subjective memory complaints, education, and risk of Alzheimer’s disease , 2007, Alzheimer's & Dementia.

[2]  David E. Warren,et al.  Hippocampal Amnesia Impairs All Manner of Relational Memory , 2008, Frontiers in human neuroscience.

[3]  K. D. de Laat,et al.  Subjective cognitive failures and hippocampal volume in elderly with white matter lesions , 2008, Neurology.

[4]  J. Jolles,et al.  Distinction Between Preclinical Alzheimer's Disease and Depression , 2000, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

[5]  Joel L. Voss,et al.  Spatial reconstruction by patients with hippocampal damage is dominated by relational memory errors , 2013, Hippocampus.

[6]  Catharyn T. Liverman,et al.  Cognitive Aging: Progress in Understanding and Opportunities for Action. , 2015, Military medicine.

[7]  W. Maier,et al.  Risk factors for incident mild cognitive impairment – results from the German Study on Ageing, Cognition and Dementia in Primary Care Patients (AgeCoDe) , 2010, Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica.

[8]  G. Small,et al.  Self-reported memory impairment and brain PET of amyloid and tau in middle-aged and older adults without dementia , 2012, International Psychogeriatrics.

[9]  J. Morris,et al.  The diagnosis of dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease: Recommendations from the National Institute on Aging-Alzheimer’s Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease , 2011, Alzheimer's & Dementia.

[10]  Margie E Lachman,et al.  Strategy use mediates the relationship between control beliefs and memory performance for middle-aged and older adults. , 2006, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[11]  L. Fratiglioni,et al.  Stability of the preclinical episodic memory deficit in Alzheimer's disease. , 2001, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[12]  R. Martins,et al.  Olfactory dysfunction is associated with subjective memory complaints in community-dwelling elderly individuals. , 2009, Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD.

[13]  Lukas Scheef,et al.  Volume reduction of the entorhinal cortex in subjective memory impairment , 2006, Neurobiology of Aging.

[14]  M. Marsiske,et al.  Subjective memory beliefs and cognitive performance in normal and mildly impaired older adults , 2006, Aging & mental health.

[15]  A. Saykin,et al.  Older adults with cognitive complaints show brain atrophy similar to that of amnestic MCI , 2006, Neurology.

[16]  Kristopher J Preacher,et al.  Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models , 2008, Behavior research methods.

[17]  M. Sliwinski,et al.  Mechanisms of age-related cognitive change and targets for intervention: social interactions and stress. , 2012, The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences.

[18]  L. Lykouras,et al.  Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS): validation in a Greek general hospital sample , 2008, Annals of general psychiatry.

[19]  Jonathan M. Schott,et al.  Binding deficits in memory following medial temporal lobe damage in patients with voltage-gated potassium channel complex antibody-associated limbic encephalitis , 2013, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[20]  Jelle Jolles,et al.  A study into the psychosocial determinants of perceived forgetfulness: implications for future interventions , 2008, Aging & mental health.

[21]  A. Mykletun,et al.  Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale: Factor structure, item analyses and internal consistency in a large population , 2001, British Journal of Psychiatry.

[22]  H. Christensen,et al.  Causal associations between depression symptoms and cognition in a community-based cohort of older adults. , 2014, The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

[23]  F. Jessen,et al.  Patterns of subjective memory impairment in the elderly: association with memory performance , 2007, Psychological Medicine.

[24]  M. Mattson,et al.  Adverse Stress, Hippocampal Networks, and Alzheimer’s Disease , 2010, NeuroMolecular Medicine.

[25]  Arthur F. Kramer,et al.  Relating Hippocampus to Relational Memory Processing across Domains and Delays , 2014, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[26]  Reisa A. Sperling,et al.  Subjective cognitive complaints and amyloid burden in cognitively normal older individuals , 2012, Neuropsychologia.

[27]  M. Lachman,et al.  Improving memory and control beliefs through cognitive restructuring and self-generated strategies. , 1992, Journal of gerontology.

[28]  T. T. Haug,et al.  The validity of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. An updated literature review. , 2002, Journal of psychosomatic research.

[29]  Keith A. Johnson,et al.  Subjective cognitive concerns and neuropsychiatric predictors of progression to the early clinical stages of Alzheimer disease. , 2014, The American journal of geriatric psychiatry : official journal of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.

[30]  Karin Zazo Ortiz,et al.  Subjective memory complaints in an elderly sample: a cross‐sectional study , 2008, International journal of geriatric psychiatry.

[31]  R. Stewart,et al.  Neuroimaging correlates of subjective memory deficits in a community population , 2008, Neurology.

[32]  R. Reitan.  Validity of the Trail Making Test as an Indicator of Organic Brain Damage , 1958 .

[33]  D. Na,et al.  Less depressive symptoms are associated with smaller hippocampus in subjective memory impairment. , 2013, Archives of gerontology and geriatrics.

[34]  Susan M. Resnick,et al.  Subjective cognitive complaints and longitudinal changes in memory and brain function. , 2011, Neuropsychology.

[35]  Clark C. Presson,et al.  The coding and transformation of spatial information , 1979, Cognitive Psychology.

[36]  Cynthia Chiong,et al.  Seeing Space in More than One Way: Children's Use of Higher Order Patterns in Spatial Memory and Cognition , 2003 .

[37]  Mony J. de Leon,et al.  Subjective Memory Complaints: Presence, Severity and Future Outcome in Normal Older Subjects , 2007, Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.

[38]  H. Christensen,et al.  Memory complaints in a community sample aged 60–64 years: associations with cognitive functioning, psychiatric symptoms, medical conditions, APOE genotype, hippocampus and amygdala volumes, and white-matter hyperintensities , 2004, Psychological Medicine.

[39]  Faiza Admiraal-Behloul,et al.  Memory complaints in patients with normal cognition are associated with smaller hippocampal volumes , 2004, Journal of Neurology.

[40]  R. West,et al.  Self-Efficacy and Memory Aging: The Impact of a Memory Intervention Based on Self-Efficacy , 2008, Neuropsychology, development, and cognition. Section B, Aging, neuropsychology and cognition.

[41]  Elizabeth M. Zelinski,et al.  The Memory Functioning Questionnaire for assessment of memory complaints in adulthood and old age. , 1990 .

[42]  Margie E. Lachman,et al.  Assessing memory control beliefs: The memory controllability inventory , 1995 .

[43]  Carole Dufouil,et al.  Longitudinal neuroimaging correlates of subjective memory impairment: 4-year prospective community study. , 2011, The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science.

[44]  R. Snaith,et al.  The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale , 1983 .

[45]  Brennan R. Payne,et al.  Memory self-efficacy predicts responsiveness to inductive reasoning training in older adults. , 2012, The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences.

[46]  C. Catania,et al.  Stress and glucocorticoid footprints in the brain—The path from depression to Alzheimer's disease , 2008, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[47]  B. Snitz,et al.  Subjective memory complaints and concurrent memory performance in older patients of primary care providers , 2008, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

[48]  Nir Giladi,et al.  Subjective memory decline in healthy community‐dwelling elders. What does this complain mean? , 2010, Acta neurologica Scandinavica.

[49]  F. Jessen,et al.  Volume Loss of the Medial Temporal Lobe Structures in Subjective Memory Impairment , 2010, Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.

[50]  Wei Zhu,et al.  Outcome over seven years of healthy adults with and without subjective cognitive impairment , 2010, Alzheimer's & Dementia.

[51]  R. Nitrini,et al.  Subjective memory impairment in a rural population with low education in the Amazon rainforest: an exploratory study , 2009, International Psychogeriatrics.

[52]  S. Cutler.  Worries About Getting Alzheimer’s , 2015, American journal of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

[53]  Robin L. West,et al.  Cognitive Self-efficacy in Relation to Personal Mastery and Goal Setting across the Life Span , 1993 .

[54]  A. Bokde,et al.  Subjective memory complaints in community dwelling healthy older people: the influence of brain and psychopathology , 2012, International journal of geriatric psychiatry.

[55]  H. Braak,et al.  Neuropathological stageing of Alzheimer-related changes , 2004, Acta Neuropathologica.

[56]  Louise M. Reid,et al.  Subjective Memory Complaints and Cognitive Impairment in Older People , 2006, Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.