Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry

Objectives : The aim of this study was to examine the prospective impact of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 on cognitive performance in the community-dwelling elderly individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Methods : The total number of subjects was 30 (12 men and 18 women) who were diagnosed with AD from a Korean project of "Early Detection of Dementia". People aged 65-85 years were included in the analysis. The eight neuropsychological domains from the Korean version of Consortium to Establish a Registry of Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD-K) were conducted to test subjects. They have been followed at 24-month intervals with the same assessments at each interval. Their cognitive performance at 2 year intervals was compared by the occurrence of the APOE ε4.

Results : The impact of ε4 allele was significant in the Word List Memory Test (WLMT, F = 4.345, df = 1, p = 0.021) and Word List Recall Test (WLRT, F = 5.569, df = 1, p = 0.033).

Conclusions : The APOE ε4 allele was significantly correlated especially with verbal episodic memory domain in community-dwelling elders diagnosed with AD.

Keywords Alzheimer’s disease;Apolipoprotein E;CERAD-K;Prospective study.