13 Relationship Between Subjective Cognitive Decline and Episodic Memory Among Older Adults with and Without Neurocognitive Impairment

Objective:Previous research has found that subjective cognitive decline corresponds with assessed memory impairment and could even be predictive of neurocognitive impairment. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a single self-report item of subjective cognitive decline corresponds with the results of a performance-based measure of episodic memory.Participants and Methods:Older adults (n = 100; age 60-90) were given the single item measure of subjective cognitive decline developed by Verfaille et al. (2018).Results:Those who endorsed subjective cognitive decline (n = 68) had lower scores on the CVLT-II long delay free recall than those who did not endorse such a decline (n = 32). Additionally, older adults with a neurocognitive diagnosis believed their memory was becoming worse at a higher proportion than those without.Conclusions:While a single item of subjective cognitive decline should not be substituted for a comprehensive evaluation of memory, the results suggest that it may have utility as a screening item.