Patients with Dementia Are Easily Distracted

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is the middle ground between normal, age-appropriate memory impairment, and dementia. Whereas patients with MCI are able to cope with the memory deficit, those with dementia are not: Their memory impairment and other cognitive deficits are of sufficient magnitude to interfere with the patients’ ability to cope independently with daily activities. In both MCI and dementia, there is evidence of declining cognitive functions from a previously higher level of functioning. In both the conditions, there is also an evidence of dysfunction in one or more cognitive domains. There are two subtypes of MCI depending on whether memory is predominantly affected: amnestic type and nonamnestic/behavioral type. Not all patients with MCI transition to dementia, some recover. In this case scenario, we present a 68-year-old man with MCI who lives with his wife. They are getting ready to host dinner. His wife asks him to vacuum the dining room while she runs an urgent errand. We describe how th...