Table 1.

Demographic and cognitive characteristics of the study participants

Diagnosis	Total number	Male/Female	Age (mean + S.D.)	MMSE, entry	MMSE, end (3 years)
Control	20	12/8	70.8 ± 5.34	29.2 ± 0.45	NA
MCIS	20	13/7	68.7 ± 7.76	29.0 ± 0.26	28.8 ± 0.33
MCIC	20	11/9	75.4 ± 6.82	27.4 ± 0.29	17.7 ± 0.70*
AD	20	12/8	71.1 ± 6.90	23.9 + 0.75*	NA

Abbreviations: AD, Alzheimer's disease; MMSE, Mini–Mental State Examination on entry into the study and at the 3-year end of the study, mean ± SEM; MCIS, subjects with mild cognitive impairment that was stable over the 3-year study; and MCIC, subjects with mild cognitive impairment on entry into the study that converted to dementia by the end of the three-year study.

NOTE. The significance of differences in MMSE between the MCIS and MCIC groups and between the control and AD groups was calculated with an unpaired t-test; *P < .001. NA = not applicable to the control and AD groups where cognitive evaluation was conducted once on entry into the study.