Subtle Inefficiencies in Everyday Tasks are Significantly More Frequent in People with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Associated with Episodic Memory Performance: Implications for Clinical Practice and Research

An ANCOVA (controlling for age) showed participants with MCI made significantly more micro-errors than participants with healthy cognition at both timepoints [Timepoint 1: F (1, 87) = 7.368, p = .008, η2 = .079; Timepoint 2: F (1, 87) = 15.167, p < .001, η2 = .151]. Micro-errors at time 1 were correlated with global cognitive status [r = -.229, p = .031], episodic memory [r = -.223, p = .036], and micro-errors at time 2, but were not correlated with measures of executive function, language, or attention. A Spearman's rank order correlation to establish test-retest reliability did not reach our .7 cut-off, though the correlation was significant (r (87) = .465, p < .001), and both time-points did not significantly differ from each other (p = .086) CONCLUSION: Although people with MCI are functionally independent, they make more inefficient actions (micro-errors) than healthy controls on highly familiar everyday tasks, and this difference was stable over time. Micro-errors, which correlations suggest reflects cognitive failures, may be useful markers for early detection of MCI, identification of risk for conversion to dementia or functional disability, and may be used as functional outcomes in clinical trials.