Early- versus late-onset Alzheimer’s disease in clinical practice: cognitive and global outcomes over 3 years

Table 3 Factors affecting long-term outcome with Mini Mental State Examination score as dependent variable, by age-at-onset group

	EOAD			LOAD
Percentage of variance accounted for, all fixed terms	54.7%, p < 0.001			51.1%, p < 0.001
Significant predictors in final mixed models	β Value	95% CI	p Value	β Value	95% CI	p Value
Fixed terms
Intercept	2.512	0.103, 4.922	0.041	−36.137	−52.439, −19.835	< 0.001
Time in months from baseline	−0.487	−0.743, −0.230	< 0.001	−0.508	−0.609, −0.407	< 0.001
MMSE score at baseline	0.942	0.830, 1.054	< 0.001	3.051	2.201, 3.901	<0.001
MMSE score at baseline²			NS	−0.019	−0.029, −0.008	0.001
Time in months × MMSE score at baseline	0.017	0.005, 0.029	0.006	0.021	0.017, 0.026	< 0.001
Time in months² × MMSE score at baseline	−0.0001	−0.0002, −0.0001	< 0.001	−0.00005	−0.00008, −0.00002	0.001
Background variables
Sex (male = 0, female = 1)			NS	−0.375	−0.727, −0.023	0.037
Antipsychotics (no = 0, yes = 1)			NS	−0.984	−1.808, −0.161	0.019
Age at first assessment, years			NS	0.481	0.279, 0.683	< 0.001
Age × MMSE score at baseline			NS	−0.021	−0.031, −0.012	< 0.001
Education, years			NS	0.084	0.010, 0.158	0.027
Time in months × education, years			NS	−0.011	−0.017, −0.004	0.001
IADL score at baseline			NS	−0.110	−0.147, −0.073	< 0.001
ChEI dose^a			NS	0.011	0.002, 0.021	0.020
Random terms (variance)
Intercept	2.617	1.516, 4.517	< 0.001	2.770	2.273, 3.376	< 0.001
Time in months	0.045	0.031, 0.067	< 0.001	0.025	0.021, 0.029	< 0.001

Abbreviations: AD Alzheimer’s disease, ChEI Cholinesterase inhibitor, EOAD Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, IADL Instrumental Activities of Daily Living Scale, LOAD Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, MMSE Mini Mental State Examination, NS Not significant, PSMS Physical Self-Maintenance Scale
Number of apolipoprotein E ε4 alleles, solitary living, duration of AD, PSMS score at baseline, number of medications and the specific concomitant medications used at baseline except for antipsychotics, as well as the variable comparing the ChEI agents, were not significant predictors in the models. β Values were unstandardised and are expressed per 1-unit increase for continuous variables and for the condition present in dichotomous variables
^aMean percentage of the maximum recommended dose, namely 10 mg for donepezil, 12 mg for rivastigmine and 24 mg for galantamine

ISSN: 1758-9193