Abstract: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) refers to a transitional state between the cognitive decline of normal aging and that of dementia and describes patients with cognitive impairments beyond that expected for their age and education. This article reviewed recent studies on semantic memory in MCI patients by comparing their experimental tasks and summarizing the inconsistent results, and concluded that MCI patients have semantic memory deficits to some extent due to various reasons, and semantic memory tests may have provide important diagnostic and prognostic information in MCI patients. Future research needs combing multiple cognitive tasks including semantic memory test to find potential MCI patients as early as possible and to provide longer time window for intervention.

Key words: mild cognitive impairment, semantic memory, dementia, aging