Affiliations: [a] Cognitive Neuroscience Division, Department of Neurology, G.H. Sergievsky Center, and Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA
| [b] Morris W. Stroud III Center for the Study of Quality of Life, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, NY, USA
| [c] Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Stephanie Cosentino, PhD, Columbia University Medical Center, 630 168th Street, P & S Box 16, New York, NY 10032, USA. Tel.: +1 212 342 0289; Fax: +1 212 342 1838; E-mail: sc2460@cumc.columbia.edu.
Abstract: Subjective impairment in memory is a frequently defining feature of subjective cognitive decline (SCD), a state hypothesized to precede objectively apparent cognitive symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and to hold promise as a non-invasive, inexpensive, preclinical indicator of AD. However, a full model of the factors that contribute to subjective memory (SM), and therefore to SCD, has yet to be articulated. While SM impairment is widely known to be associated with negative affect, the extent to which SM functioning may also reflect other factors, particularly subjective beliefs or perceptions about one’s health, is not known. To examine the extent to which SM is associated with subjective perceptions of health more broadly, the current study investigated the link between SM and subjective physical functioning (independent of depressive affect, and objective cognitive and physical function) in an ethnically diverse sample of 471 older adults enrolled in the population-based Northern Manhattan Aging Project. 199 (42%) participants endorsed no difficulty on a 5-point SM index while 272 (58%) endorsed some degree of difficulty. As hypothesized, SM correlated with both depression and subjective physical function, but not with age, education, global cognition, or objective physical function. When objective and subjective physical function were entered in two separate, adjusted linear regressions predicting SM, only subjective physical function and depressive affect independently predicted SM. Subjective perceptions of memory appear to reflect individuals’ broader health perceptions in part. Articulating the various correlates of SM will improve identification of SCD specific to preclinical AD.
