Mild Behavioral Impairment is a construct developed by the International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment, Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Professional Interest Area. MBI describes the relationship between later-life onset of sustained and impactful neuropsychiatric symptoms and changes in behavior, and the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. MBI cannot be diagnosed if there is a current diagnosis of dementia nor if symptoms can be better explained by a current formal psychiatric illness.
The MBI provisional research diagnostic criteria have been published in the Alzheimer’s Association flagship journal (Ismail et al. "Neuropsychiatric symptoms as early manifestations of emergent dementia: provisional diagnostic criteria for mild behavioral impairment." Alzheimer's & Dementia 12.2 (2016): 195-202.). The MBI checklist (MBI-C) is an instrument based on these criteria and has been developed to detect MBI. The MBI-C development paper has also been published (Ismail et al. "The Mild Behavioral Impairment Checklist (MBI-C): A rating scale for neuropsychiatric symptoms in pre-dementia populations” Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 56.3 (2017).
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The MBI checklist (MBI-C) was developed for research and has not been validated for clinical diagnosis and assessment. Validation studies are ongoing with respect to scoring and prognostication. Collaborations on MBI research and validation are welcome--please contact us for details. The MBI-C is provided “as is” without representations of any kind, and whoever owns this invention expressly disclaims any warranty or condition, express or implied, statutory or otherwise, including, without limitation, any warranty that the MBI-C (a) are fit for a particular purpose, (b) are durable for a reasonable period of time, or (c) does not and will not infringe any patent, trade-mark, trade secret or other intellectual property or other proprietary right of any third party.
The checklist is designed to quantify the severity of behavioural symptoms in multiple domains. Global and domain-specific scores and thresholds have not yet been developed and validated for clinical diagnosis and prognosis. Ongoing validation work will identify scores and thresholds that predict an increased risk of transition to dementia. The website will be updated with results of validation as they are completed.
For further information on MBI and the MBI-C, and for collaborations, validations or licensing, please contact Dr. Zahinoor Ismail at the email below.
Zahinoor Ismail MD FRCPC
Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary