Gait dysfunction, or difficulty walking, often accompanies mild cognitive impairment in older adults, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Researchers studied 54 subjects with amnestic mild cognitive impairment, 62 with non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment and 295 cognitively normal control subjects in the Einstein Aging Study. Compared with control subjects, patients with either mild cognitive impairment subtypes had the worse quantitative gait on most parameters.
Disability scores among individuals with mild cognitive impairment were worse for those with any gait abnormalities than without gait abnormalities, researchers noted.
