Planning in Healthy Elderly and Mild Cognitive Impairment: a Systematic Review

Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is a syndrome that is intermediate between healthy and pathological aging, characterized by psychological and behavioral symptoms and by the decline of one or more cognitive functions, e.g., executive functions (EF). One such EF is planning, which is the ability to organize behavior in given situations and to think ahead to achieve a goal through a series of intermediate steps. Planning is a fundamental ability in the everyday life; it involves the frontal area, and it requires sustained attention and inhibition of automatic responses. The purpose of this work is to investigate planning in healthy and MCI elderly, assuming the role of planning deficits as a predictor of cognitive decline. The systematic review was conducted according to the PRISMA Statement. Thirty-seven studies evaluated planning in healthy elderly and MCI participants, and 59.5% reported poorer planning performance in MCI. However, these data should be interpreted with caution; the results show a negative trend in MCI who reported lower capacity than healthy elderly, even though some studies used inappropriate tests which are not specific for planning assessment. Finally, this finding may have clinical significance because planning ability deficits could be a predictor of MCI.