Abstract: ObjectiveTo deter mine the sustained attention function of the patients with mild Alzheimer's disease(AD) and mild cognitive impairment(MCI).Methods10 patients with MCI, 10 with mild AD and other 10 healthy elderly controls were tested with Continuous Performance Task(CPT) aimed to assess sustained attention. ResultsCompared with the normal controls, the mild AD patients reacted very more slowly(P<0.001), missed more targets(P<0.05), while that the MCI patients did was as well as the control group. ConclusionThe mild AD patients shows impairment in sustained attention function, but the MCI patients shows a preserved ability of sustained attention function.

Key words: Alzheimer's disease(AD), mild cognitive impairment(MCI), sustained attention function