Jul 25, 2014 05:29 PM EDT By J Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

Slow walking and memory complaints may be able to predict dementia risk, according to a recent study.

Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center found that nearly 1 in 10 people met the criteria for pre-dementia based on a simple test that measures how fast people walk and whether they have cognitive complaints. People who tested positive for pre-dementia were twice as likely as others to develop dementia within 12 years.

"In many clinical and community settings, people don't have access to the sophisticated tests --biomarker assays, cognitive tests or neuroimaging studies -- used to diagnose people at risk for developing dementia," Joe Verghese, senior author of the study, said in a statement. "Our assessment method could enable many more people to learn if they're at risk for dementia, since it avoids the need for complex testing and doesn't require that the test be administered by a neurologist."

For the study, researchers collected and analyzed data from nearly 27,000 older adults. The new test diagnoses motoric cognitive risk syndrome (MCR). Testing for the newly described syndrome relies on measuring gait speed - the manner of walking -- and asking a few simple questions about a patient's cognitive abilities, both of which take just seconds.

A significant number of adults-9.7 percent-met the criteria for MCR (i.e., abnormally slow gait and cognitive complaints). While the syndrome was equally common in men and women, highly educated people were less likely to test positive for MCR compared with less-educated individuals. A slow gait, said Verghese, is a walking speed slower than about one meter per second, which is about 2.2 miles per hour (mph). Less than 0.6 meters per second (or 1.3 mph) is "clearly abnormal."

To test whether MCR predicts future dementia, the researchers focused on  more than 4,000 people for MCR and then evaluated them annually over an average follow-up period of 12 years to see which ones developed dementia. Those who met the criteria for MCR were nearly twice as likely to develop dementia over the following 12 years compared with people who did not.

Verghese emphasized that a slow gait alone is not sufficient for a diagnosis of MCR.

"Walking slowly could be due to conditions such as arthritis or an inner ear problem that affects balance, which would not increase risk for dementia," Verghese said. "To meet the criteria for MCR requires having a slow gait and cognitive problems. An example would be answering 'yes' to the question, 'Do you think you have more memory problems than other people?'"

The findings were recently published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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