Clinical Manifestations

Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) is a prevalent condition impacting 11.7% of older adults, which increases the risk for mild cognitive impairment and dementia. The transition to SCD and dementia is often accompanied by an increase in affective symptoms (i.e., anxiety and depression) and decreased quality of life (QoL). Affective symptoms in SCD increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) compared to SCD alone. SCD plus (SCD+) is a condition that is known to increase the likelihood of preclinical AD, including amyloid-beta and pathologic tau deposition. The relationships among SCD symptoms, affective symptoms, and QoL have been observed; however, they remain poorly understood. We aimed to explore the associations between SCD, affective symptoms, and QoL and identify any differences within the SCD+ subset of individuals. Community-recruited individuals with SCD (n = 38) were divided into two groups SCD+ (those with >3 SCD+ features [Table 1]) and non-SCD+. We used correlational analysis to determine relationships among SCD symptoms, affective symptoms, QoL overall, and four QoL domains. The mean age of participants was 74.6 (7.5) years of age (Table 2). Demographic variables were not significantly different between groups. In the entire sample, significant correlations were found between anxiety and depressive symptoms (r = 0.44, p =