P1-392: Absent correlation between executive functions and apathy scores in a community sample of cognitively impaired oldest old: The Pietà study

Apathy has been related to executive functions in AD. However, as dementia advances, goal-directed behavior could be impaired solely by cognitive dysfunction in spite of behavioral change. We selected a subjects' sample from the first wave of evaluation of the PIETÀ study, a community-based epidemiological research on well succeeded brain aging in Brazil, who fulfilled clinical diagnosis of mild to moderate dementia of possible Alzheimer or mixed type, and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Most of them where submitted to a complete evaluation consisting of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), animal category fluency, Executive Interview (Exit-25), Mattis Dementia Rating Scale, Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), Disability Assessment in Dementia (DAD) and Apathy Scale. The sample consisted of 52 subjects, 28 with MCI and 24 with dementia (17 mild), aged 82.2 ± 5.0 years, 56% female and with educational level of 2.9 ± 2.4 years. No correlation was found between apathy scores and any global or executive cognitive measure. This finding were observed in the whole sample and where replicated in the MCI, mildly demented and demented sub-samples. Apathy scores inversely correlated with DAD scores in the demented subjects (r = -0.698; p= 0.0011). In this community based sample of low-literacy cognitively impaired oldest old elderly, no correlation was found between executive measures and apathy scores. However, higher apathy scores correlated with worse functional performance in the demented patients.