Examination of patients with cognitive impairments 
Tkacheva O.N.¹, Cherdak M.A.¹, Mkhitaryan E.A.^1,2
1 Russian gerontological scientific and clinical center, Moscow
² First Moscow State Medical University named after I.M. Sechenov
Cognitive functions impairment is a frequent impairment in elderly and senile people. The most severe form of cognitive impairment (CI) is dementia, which disrupts the patient's professional, daily and social activity. The CI is characterized by a frequent combination with non-cognitive disorders - emotional affective and behavioral disorders, which can distort the clinical picture of the disease and cause choosing a wrong treatment for the patient­. Diagnosis and determination of the etiology of the CI at the pre-existing stage are crucial for the timely initiation of therapy in order to prolong the period with a higher level of functioning, which not only facilitates the patient's own life, but also reduces the burden on carers, as well as the socioeconomic burden for the whole society. The article discusses modern approaches to CI classification, issues of their etiology, presents clinical and paraclinic methods of CI diagnosis, and suggests an algorithm for examining patients with possible CI.

Key words: cognitive disorders, mild cognitive impairment, dementia, biomarkers, neuropsychological testing, scales.
Fot citation: Tkacheva O.N., Cherdak M.A., Mkhitaryan E.A.­ Examination of patients with cognitive impairments // RMJ. 2017. № 25. P. 1880–1883.