This study clarified the patterns of possessing modifiable risk factors of dementia that can be corrected by the elderly who were primarily determined to have mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and then determined the relationship between retention patterns and outcomes from MCI through a 4-year follow-up study. The participants were 789 community-dwelling elders who were ≥65 years old with MCI at baseline. After 4 years, participants were classified into reverters and nonreverters, according to their cognitive function. Repeated measures analysis was performed after imputing missing values due to dropout. Nine modifiable risk factors at baseline were classified by latent class analysis. Subsequently, we performed binomial logistic regression analysis. The reversion rate of 789 participants was 30.9%. The possession patterns of modifiable risk factors among the elderly with MCI were classified into five patterns: low risk, psychosocial, health behavior, educational, and smoking factors. According to logistic regression analysis, the low risk factors class was more likely to recover from MCI to normal cognitive than the other classes (p < 0.05). These results may provide useful information for designing interventions to prevent cognitive decline and dementia in individuals with MCI.
Keywords: educational; health behavior; latent class analysis; mild cognitive impairment; modifiable risk factor; psychosocial; smoking.