Deficient learning and memory in early and middle phases of multiple sclerosis.

Abstract

SUMMARY Forty-three patients with multiple sclerosis showed disturbances in short-term memory, learning, and delayed recall which were associated with years of active disease (average was 4.5 years), age, presence of flareup, but not steroid/ACTH treatment. Unrecognised memory loss might be prevalent early in the natural history of multiple sclerosis and deserves neuropsychological assessment.Cognitive decline commonly occurs in the later stages of multiple sclerosis.' In the past three decades some of the qualitative and quantitative features of cognitive change have been delineated through neuropsychological inquiry. Many investigations of intelligence in multiple sclerosis have concluded that patients with demyelination show disproportionate drops in peformance IQ while maintaining relatively good verbal skills.2 More comprehensive neuropsychological studies, utilising procedures such as the Halstead-Reitan Battery revealed patients with multiple sclerosis to have marked motor and perceptual-motor integrative deficits, generally intact verbal-language skills, and variable decrements in abstracting ability.3'0 A century has passed since Charcot first observed "enfeeblement of memory" in his patients" and " 12Gowers wrote of their "failure of memory".Despite this, the neuropsychological research reviewed above has been singularly lacking in systematic assessment of memory. Surridge'3 noted from structured psychiatric examination that approximately two-thirds of his patients showed intellectual decline, with amnesia being a central problem. Jambor's'4 related psychometric study found deficits in sentence learning and delayed recall of nonverbal information. These observations Address for reprint requests: Professor I Grant, Psychiatry Service (116). V.A.

Cognitive profile of patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis

“…The results here presented are in agreement with several reports of normal verbal and visuospatial span 8,10,[12][13][14][22][23][24] .…”

“…The WMS Logical Memory and similar story recall tests are consistently found to be impaired in patiens with MS 12,13,23,28 , as well as the difficult pairs and the delayed testing of paired associates 8,13,24,35 . Visual reproduction was also found to be impaired by Rao et al 13 in chronic progressive patients.…”

“…Memory and learning impairments are being repeatedly demonstrated since the late 60s (e.g. [9][10][11][12][13][14], while general intelligence and language seem to be less affected.…”

The Effects of Picotesla Range Magnetic Fields on Visuospatial Functions in Multiple Sclerosis

“…Recent studies have confirmed the high incidence of cognitive disturbances in patients with MS (Kahana et al, 1971;Kurtzke et al, 1972;Staples & Lincoln, 1979;Grant et al, 1984;Rao et al, 1984;Filley et al, 1989;Franklin et al, 1990;White, 1990) and it has been suggested that MS be considered a form of "subcortical" dementia, characterized by deficits in visuospatial and memory functions with intact verbal skills (Caine et al, 1986;Rao, 1986). However, other authors have reported also verbal and language loss in MS patients including deficits on the WAIS vocabulary test, naming, reading, and verbal fluency (Diers & Brown, 1950;Jambor, 1969;Ivnik, 1978;Grant et al, 1984;Heaton et al, 1985).…”

Μελέτη Πολυμορφισμών Των Γονιδίων Των Κυτταροκινών Σε Ασθενείς Με Σκλήρυνση Κατά Πλάκας

“… Συνήθως εκδηλώνονται με διαταραχή μνήμης (Rao SM, 1984, Grant I, 1984, Beatty WW, 1988) ή μείωσης της ταχύτητας επεξεργασίας πληροφοριών από τον εγκέφαλο (Beatty WW, 1988, Litvan I, 1988, Rao SM, 1989, Janculjak D, 1999, αφασικές διαταραχές , Okuda B, 1996, λόγω μαζικής απομυελινωτικής βλάβης του επικρατούντος ημισφαιρίου (Kahana E, 1971), ή ψυχικές διαταραχές, κυρίως του συναισθήματος, όλες φλοιώδους προέλευσης. Σε ένα μικρό ποσοστό ασθενών με ΣΚΠ μπορεί να εκδηλωθεί πρώιμα «υποφλοιώδης» άνοια (Young AC, 1976, Gordon FS, 1996.…”