Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a classification reserved for nondemented elderly individuals at increased risk for future decline to dementia, compared to those with normal cognition. Cognitive tests, particularly those assessing verbal recall, have been found to be useful in the identification of elderly people with MCI. We argue that a variety of motor/psychomotor evaluations are also sensitive to MCI. Motor assessments described as complex correctly categorize normal versus MCI elderly with comparable accuracies to those obtained by cognitive tests. Unlike performance on verbally based cognitive measures, motor-test scores appear to be relatively independent of educational attainment, indicating that the use of certain motor tests may be particularly valuable in the identification of MCI among elderly with widely varying educational backgrounds.
