Subjective cognitive decline disrupts aspects of prospective memory in older adults with HIV disease

ABSTRACT

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) is a risk factor for dementia that may occur at higher rates in people with HIV (PWH). Prospective memory (PM) is an aspect of cognition that may help us better understand how SCD impacts daily life. Paricipants were 62 PWH aged ≥ 50 years and 33 seronegative individuals. SCD was operationalized as normatively elevated cognitive symptoms on standardized questionnaires, but with normatively unimpaired performance-based cognition and no current affective disorders. PM was measured with the Comprehensive Assessment of Prospective Memory (CAPM), the Cambridge Test of Prospective Memory (CAMPROMPT), and an experimental computerized time-based PM task. A logistic regression revealed that older PWH had a three-fold increased likelihood for SCD. Among the PWH, SCD was associated with more frequent PM symptoms and poorer accuracy on the time-based scale of the CAMPROMPT. These findings suggest that SCD disrupts PM in older PWH.

KEYWORDS:

• Aging
• everyday functioning
• future thinking
• infectious disease
• neuropsychological assessment
• subjective cognitive impairment

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the University of California, San Diego HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (HNRP) Group (I. Grant, PI) for their infrastructure support of the parent R01. We are especially grateful to Donald Franklin, Dr. Erin Morgan, Clint Cushman, and Stephanie Corkran for their assistance with data processing, Marizela Verduzco for her assistance with study management, Dr. Scott Letendre and Dr. Ronald J. Ellis for their assistance with the neuromedical aspects of the parent project, and Dr. J. Hampton Atkinson and Jennifer Marquie Beck for their assistance with participant recruitment and retention. The views written in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, nor the United States Government. Aspects of this work were supported by resources from the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Academic Affiliations, Advanced Fellowship Program in Mental Illness Research and Treatment, and the VA Northwest Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, Washington. The authors also thank the study volunteers for their participation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [P30-MH62512,R01-MH73419].