Alzheimer's disease risk factors as mediators of subjective memory impairment and objective memory decline: protocol for a construct-level replication analysis.

Discovery of modifiable AD risk factors that mediate the association between SMI and memory decline (the earliest and most central deficit in AD) will provide explicit, and potentially novel, targets for intervention. Additionally, identifying individuals at highest risk for negative reactions to SMI will serve to enrich samples for future research as well as to help guide the development of SMI assessment tools to identify older adults at greatest risk for debilitating outcomes.