Aging is associated with subjective memory complaints. Approximately half of those with subjective memory complaints have objective cognitive impairment. Previous studies have provided evidence of an association between genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and dementia progression. Also, aging is a significant risk factor for vascular pathology that may underlie at least some of the cognitive changes. This study investigates the relative contribution of subjective cognitive complaints (SCC), vascular function, and genetic risk for dementia in predicting objective cognitive performance. Multiple regression and relative importance analysis were used to investigate the relative contribution of vascular function, self-reported SCC, and dementia genetic risk, in predicting objective cognition in a sample of 238 healthy community-dwelling older adults. Age, sex, premorbid cognitive abilities, subjective verbal memory complaints, higher cerebrovascular blood flow during submaximal exercise, and certain dementia risk alleles were significant predictors of worse objective verbal memory performance (p < 0.001, R² = 35.2–36.4%). Using relative importance analysis, subjective verbal memory complaints, and certain dementia risk alleles contributed more variance than cerebrovascular measures. These results suggest that age-related changes in memory in healthy older adults can be predicted by subjective memory complaints, genetic risk, and to a lesser extent, cerebrovascular function.

衰老与主观记忆障碍有关。约有主观记忆抱怨的人中有一半患有客观认知障碍。先前的研究提供了阿尔茨海默氏病（AD）的遗传风险与痴呆症进展之间相关性的证据。同样，衰老是血管病理的重要危险因素，可能是至少某些认知变化的基础。这项研究调查了主观认知障碍（SCC），血管功能和痴呆症遗传风险在预测客观认知表现方面的相对贡献。多元回归和相对重要性分析用于调查血管功能，自我报告的SCC和痴呆症遗传风险的相对贡献，238位健康的社区居住老年人的样本中，预测客观认知的能力。年龄，性别，病前认知能力，主观言语记忆障碍，次最大运动中脑血管血流量增加以及某些痴呆风险等位基因是客观言语记忆表现较差的重要预测指标（p <0.001， [R² = 35.2–36.4％）。使用相对重要性分析，主观语言记忆障碍和某些痴呆症风险等位基因比脑血管措施贡献更大的差异。这些结果表明，健康的成年人中与年龄有关的记忆变化可通过主观记忆抱怨，遗传风险以及较小程度的脑血管功能来预测。