Clinical Manifestations.

Area of Science:

• Gerontology
• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Neuropsychiatric symptoms are potential early indicators of cognitive decline and dementia.
• The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C) assesses neuropsychiatric changes but may be subject to rating biases.
• Discrepancies in MBI-C ratings can arise from different information sources.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate differences in Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C) ratings among self-reports, informant reports, and researcher evaluations.
• To determine if respondent perspectives influence MBI-C scores in individuals with or at risk for cognitive impairment.

Main Methods:

• 123 participants with Mild Behavioral Impairment (MBI) were recruited, including those with pure MBI and those with MBI and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
• Participants, their informants, and researchers completed the MBI-C.
• Researcher evaluations, based on participant and informant data, served as the gold standard for MBI identification.

Main Results:

• Significant differences in MBI-C scores were found across self, informant, and researcher ratings in the decreased motivation, affective dysregulation, and social inappropriateness domains.
• Self and researcher ratings were higher for decreased motivation compared to informant ratings.
• Researcher ratings were higher for affective dysregulation than informant ratings, while informant ratings were higher for social inappropriateness than self-ratings.

Conclusions:

• Respondent perspectives significantly influence Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C) scores.
• Clinicians must consider potential discrepancies between self, informant, and researcher ratings when interpreting MBI-C results.
• Caution is advised when using MBI-C data from various sources for diagnosing or monitoring cognitive decline.