Long-term recovery of cognitive functioning in alcoholic women was investigated using an independent groups design and a test-retest analysis. In the independent groups design, long-term sober alcoholics (n = 40) performed at or near the shortterm sober alcoholic (n = 40) level on several perceptuomotor speed tasks, at the nonalcoholic control level (« = 70) on several complex problem-solving measures, and intermediate to the two groups on most measures, suggesting a differential improvement in cognitive abilities. For the test-retest design, the same neuropsychologkal battery was first administered to 25 short-term sober alcoholics and 25 control subjects and readministered to both groups 1.8 years later. Relative to the control subjects, alcoholics demonstrated deficits over both testings on all abstracting, visual-spatial, and perceptuomotor, measures, although they did show a trend toward greater improvement on these tests in the follow-up. Results also suggested that posttreatment drinking may be a variable of considerable importance in studies of recovery of cognitive functions in alcoholics.Although a great deal is known about the neuropsychological consequences of alcoholism, this knowledge is primarily limited to the cognitive functioning of recently detoxified alcoholic men (Eckard,

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Examined performance of three matched groups (N = 35 each) of female alcoholics (average sobriety 1 month), female recovered alcoholics (average sobriety 1 year), and female nonalcoholic controls on the Brain‐Age Quotient (BAQ), an age‐adjusted index of cerebral dysfunction. The mean BAQs of the alcoholics and recovered alcoholics were significantly lower than that of the controls. Analyses of the BAQ subtests indicated that the alcoholics performed significantly less well than the controls on the Halstead Category Test, Tactual Performance Test‐Time, WAIS Block Design and WAIS Digit Symbol, which replicates findings with male alcoholics. The recovered alcoholics performed at the alcoholic level on WAIS Block Design and Digit Symbol and performed at the control level on the Halstead Category test; which suggests a differential recovery of cognitive abilities in abstinent female alcoholics.

The prevalence of physical health disorders and measures of cognitive functioning were compared for 100 alcoholic and 100 nonalcoholic women matched on age and education. Alcoholic women were less healthy and more impaired on visual-spatial tasks than nonalcoholic women, and there were no relationships between health and cognitive functioning for either group.

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