Advances in Alzheimer’s Disease, 2014, 3, 11-19 Published Online March 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/aad http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aad.2014.31002 How to cite this paper: Tsolaki, M., et al. (2014) Prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Individuals Aged over 65 in a Rural Area in North Greece. Advances in Alzheimer’s Disease, 3, 11-19. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aad.2014.31002 Prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Individuals Aged over 65 in a Rural Area in North Greece Magda Tsolaki 1,2 , Tania Kakoudaki 2* , Anthoula Tsolaki 2 , Eleni Verykouki 2 , Vassiliki Pattakou 3 1 3rd Department of Neurology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece 2 Greek Association of Alzheimer Disease and Relative Disorders, Thessaloniki, Greece 3 School of Health and Social Welfare, Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Iraklio, Greece Email: * m.kakoudaki3@gmail.com Received 21 October 2013; revised 16 December 2013; accepted 25 December 2013 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract There are no data available on the prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) in Greece, and the existing information about dementia shows important variations depending on the geograph- ical setting as well as the methodology employed. The aim of this study was to determine the pre- valence of MCI in individuals aged over 65 in a rural area in the north part of Greece. From 1428 residents, 678 were finally examined, with a mean age of 73.35 years. Assessments, including neuropsychological testing, neurological examination and medical history, were used to assign a diagnosis of normal cognition, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), with or without depression, de- pression or dementia according to suitable criteria. A questionnaire was also used to obtain social and demographic data. The 26.3% were classified as Mild Cognitive Impaired without depression, the 8.8% as Mild Cognitive Impaired due to depression, 5.9% had sole depression, the 2.4% were diagnosed with dementia and 56.6% had normal mental status. The observed prevalence for MCI with and without depression implies a total of 35.1% of all people aged over 65 with MCI in the study area. Mild cognitive impairment is more prevalent in Greece than dementia, and its subtypes vary in prevalence. Keywords Mild Cognitive Impairment; Prevalence; Epidemiology; Greece * Corresponding author.