Subjective memory and 5-year all-cause mortality in subjective cognitive decline, non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment, and amnestic mild cognitive impairment

Cognitive decline is becoming increasingly prevalent, and dementia diseases are currently the seventh leading cause of death worldwide-the trend is rising. Consequently, it is imperative to identify influencing factors on the mortality of cognitively impaired patients. So, the main aim of this study was to determine the impact of subjective memory on 5-year mortality in Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD), non-amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (naMCI), and amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI). A Cox proportional hazard model was applied to assess whether subjective memory performance (FAI) predicts mortality across SCD, naMCI, and aMCI. It was based on a university-based single-center retrospective data analysis with n = 1004 adjusted patient records from the Department of Neurology of the Medical University of Vienna over the observation period 2000-2022. Covariates such as sociodemographic factors (age, gender, years of schooling), depression (BDI-II), and neuropsychological performance (NTBV) were included blockwise. Study findings suggest that subjective memory performance could not be identified as an explanatory value for mortality in the study population, p's ≥ .181. Rather, increasing age (HR 1.083, p < .001) and male gender (inverted HR 1.517, p = .004) were identified as relative risk factors. Also, four NTBV dimensions emerged as significant factors: decreased attention (HR 1.417, p < .001), diminished executive function (HR 1.283, p < .001), reduced objective memory (inverted HR 1.253, p = .001), and a declined language (inverted HR 1.166, p = .026) can be assumed to be relative risks for higher mortality.