Perea-Bartolome et al. BMC Public Health 2011, 11:504 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/504 S T U D Y P R O T O C O L Open Access Detection of mild cognitive impairment in people older than 65 years of age and its relationship to cardiovascular risk factors (DECRIVAM) M Victoria Perea-Bartolome1*, Ricardo García-García1, Valentina Ladera-Fernández1, Sara Mora-Simón1,2, María C Patino-Alonso2,3, Tita J Almanza-Guerra1, Cristina Agudo-Conde1, M Paz Muriel-Diez2 and Emiliano Rodríguez-Sánchez2 Abstract Background: Studies centered on the detection of cognitive impairment and its relationship to cardiovascular risk factors in elderly people have gained special relevance in recent years. Knowledge of the cardiovascular risk factors that may be associated to cognitive impairment could be very useful for introducing treatments in early stages - thereby possibly contributing to improve patient quality of life. The present study explores cognitive performance in people over 65 years of age in Salamanca (Spain), with special emphasis on the identification of early symptoms of cognitive impairment, with the purpose of detecting mild cognitive impairment and of studying the relationships between this clinical situation and cardiovascular risk factors. Methods/Design: A longitudinal study is contemplated. The reference population will consist of 420 people over 65 years of age enrolled through randomized sampling stratified by healthcare area, and who previously participated in another study. Measurement: a) Sociodemographic variables; b) Cardiovascular risk factors; c) Comorbidity; d) Functional level for daily life activities; and e) Study of higher cognitive functions based on a neuropsychological battery especially adapted to the evaluation of elderly people. Discussion: We hope that this study will afford objective information on the representative prevalence of cognitive impairment in the population over 65 years of age in Salamanca. We also hope to obtain data on the relationship between cognitive impairment and cardiovascular risk factors in this specific population group. Based on the results obtained, we also will be able to establish the usefulness of some of the screening tests applied during the study, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination and the 7 Minute Screen test. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01327196 Background The study of cognitive impairment in elderly people presently constitutes an important challenge, considering that the population life expectancy has increased signifi- cantly in the last decades. With advancing age, and particularly after 60 years of age, the prevalence of cogni- tive impairment increases almost exponentially, and represents one of the main causes of disability among the elderly[1-5]. In the European Union it has been estimated * Correspondence: vperea@usal.es 1Departamento de Psicología Básica, Psicobiología y Metodología de las Ciencias del Comportamiento. Facultad de Psicología. Universidad de Salamanca. Salamanca, Spain Full list of author information is available at the end of the article that over 5 million inhabitants suffered dementia in the year 2005 (1.14-1.27% of the population), with a total of 583,208 registered cases in Spain that year [6]. In the region of Castilla y León, the estimated prevalence of dementia is 6.4% in people aged 65 years and older - representing about 43,500 individuals. This situation now constitutes an important clinical, healthcare and socioe- conomic problem, in view of the sanitary and care requirements involved, the important family impact, and the scarcity of effective therapeutic resources. Few studies on the economical cost of dementia have been conducted in our setting, though the estimated cost exceeds 9000 euros per patient and year, considering only the direct © 2011 Perea-Bartolom et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.