Judit Subirana-Mirete
Ramon Llull University, Spain
Title: The meaningfulness of cognitive processing speed in the assessment of cognitive impairment
Biography
Biography: Judit Subirana-Mirete
Abstract
The aim of this communication is to introduce the importance of the inclusion of Cognitive Processing Speed (CPS) in neuropsychological assessments for MCI & AD as the slowdown of the CPS is present in multiple diseases of the CNS among which we can include cognitive impairments of diverse aetheologies. Relation between CPS not only with white matter but also with grey matter gives us some clues about its importance in cognitive neurodegenerative processes. The separation between CPS and other cognitive processes is important to be considered and, although it has been shown possible, its everyday clinical assessment still presents many knots which are not easy to cope with. When assessing other cognitive domains, we usually use time-controlled neuropsychological tasks. These timings are often considered for the final conclusions of the overall cognitive status of the patients. However, we do not take into consideration that maybe only the CPS is slowed and there's no affect in the other cognitive domains but only slowed capacity of the system. For enhancing the assessment of CPS, some tests are being developed and adapted in order to be able to differentiate among the cognitive difficulties presented over evaluation on everyday clinical practice. We will be presenting new outcomes on CPS construct and its assessment as well as several studies that have been conducted in order to quantitatively evaluate the slowing of CPS in different stages of aging and cognitive impairment, including MCI and early stages of AD.