Background: Early recognition of dementia like Alzheimer's disease is crucial for disease diagnosis and treatment, and existing objective tools for early screening of cognitive impairment are limited.
Objective: To investigate age-related behavioral indicators of dual-task cognitive performance and gait parameters and to explore potential objective markers of early cognitive decline.
Methods: The community-based cognitive screening data was analyzed. Hierarchical cluster analysis and Pearson correlation analysis were performed on the 9-item subjective cognitive decline (SCD-9) scores, walking-cognitive dual-task performance, walking speed, and gait parameters of 152 participants. The significant differences of indicators that may related to cognitive decline were statistically analyzed across six age groups. A mathematical model with age as the independent variable and motor cognition composite score as the dependent variable was established to observe the trend of motor cognition dual-task performance with age.
Results: Strong correlation was found between motor cognitive scores and SCD and age. Gait parameters like the mean value of ankle angle, the left-right difference rate of ankle angle and knee angle and the coefficient of variation of gait cycle showed an excellent correlation with age. Motor cognition scores showed a decreasing trend with age. The slope of motor cognition scores with age after 50 years (k = -1.06) was six times higher than that before 50 years (k = -0.18).
Conclusions: Cognitive performance and gait parameters in the walking-cognitive dual-task state are promising objective markers that could characterize age-related cognitive decline.
Keywords: Age; Alzheimer’s disease; cognitive decline; motor cognitive assessment; objective markers; walking-cognitive dual task.