Research Article Choroidal Thickness in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Type Dementia Mehmet Bulut, 1 Aylin Yaman, 2 Muhammet Kazim Erol, 1 Fatma KurtuluG, 2 Devrim Toslak, 1 Berna DoLan, 1 Deniz Turgut Çoban, 1 and Ebru Kaya BaGar 3 1 Antalya Training and Research Hospital, Ophthalmology Department, 07050 Antalya, Turkey 2 Antalya Training and Research Hospital, Neurology Department, 07050 Antalya, Turkey 3 Department of Animal Science Biometry and Genetics Unit, Faculty of Agriculture, Akdeniz University, 07070 Antalya, Turkey Correspondence should be addressed to Muhammet Kazim Erol; muhammetkazimerol@gmail.com Received 21 September 2015; Accepted 8 December 2015 Academic Editor: Jes´ us Pintor Copyright © 2016 Mehmet Bulut et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Aim. To asses both choroidal thickness diferences among Alzheimer’s type dementia (ATD) patients, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients, and healthy control (C) subjects and choroidal thickness relationships with cognitive performance. Methods.A total of 246 eyes of 123 people (41 ATD, 38 MCI, and 44 healthy C subjects) were included in this study. Complete ophthalmological and neurological examination was performed in all subjects. Choroidal thicknesses (CT) were measured at seven locations: the fovea, 500-1500-3000 m temporal and 500-1500-3000 m nasal to the fovea by enhanced depth imaging optical coherence tomography (EDI-OCT). Detailed neurological examination including mini mental state examination (MMSE) test which evaluates the cognitive function was applied to all participants. Results. Te ages and genders of all participants were similar in all groups. Compared with healthy C subjects, the CT measurements at all regions were signifcantly thinner both in patients with ATD and in patients with MCI than in healthy C subjects ( < 0.05). Te MMSE scores were signifcantly diferent among ATD patients, MCI patients, and healthy C subjects. Tey were 19.3 ± 1.8, 24.8 ± 0.9, and 27.6 ± 1.2 in ATD, MCI, and healthy controls, respectively ( < 0.001). Tere were also signifcant correlation between MMSE score and choroidal thickness at each location ( < 0.05). Conclusions. CT was reduced in ATD patients and MCI patients. Since vascular structures were afected in ATD patients and MCI patients, they had thin CT. Besides CT was correlated with degree of cognitive impairment. Terefore CT may be a new biomarker in diagnosis and follow-up of MCI and ATD patients. 1. Introduction Alzheimer’s type dementia disease (ATD) is the most fre- quent form of dementia and is characterized by cognitive defcits including progressive memory disturbance, higher cortical functions, executive functions, and other compo- nents of cognition [1]. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a recently described syndrome in which patients experience subjective and objective memory defcits or have impairment of other cognitive abilities other than memory. Tey may yield abnormal scores on memory tests, but their activities of daily living and occupational functions are not afected. MCI represents a clinical condition in which the risk of developing dementia is increased and is accepted as a transitional stage between “healthy” and “dementia” [2]. As human life expectancy continues to increase, the prevalence of ATD and MCI is expected to increase along with the need to treat patients with these diseases [3]. Although ATD is primarily a disease of the brain charac- terized by cognitive abnormalities, it is also associated with impairments in visual function, including impairments in color perception, depth perception, contrast sensitivity, and visual feld [4]. Te retina is an extension of the brain that is, like other regions of the brain, derived from the neural tube [5]. Recent reports suggest that degenerative diseases of the retina, including age-related macular degeneration and glaucoma, share common features with ATD. Indeed, ATD, age-related macular degeneration, and glaucoma are all complex, multifactorial forms of degeneration of central nervous system tissue in which age is the primary risk factor Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Ophthalmology Volume 2016, Article ID 7291257, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/7291257