Primary Sjogren’s syndrome: cognitive symptoms, mood, and cognitive performance

Abstract

Objective to investigate the relationships between self-reported cognitive abilities, psychological symptoms and neuropsychological outcomes in PSS. Methods PSS patients and healthy controls completed a comprehensive neuropsychometric battery and questionnaires: the Centers for Epidemiological Scale-Depression, the Profile of Fatigue- mental domain (Prof-M) for cognitive symptoms, Fatigue Severity Scale and the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire. Results Female PSS patients (N=39) were similar to controls (N=17) in estimated pre-morbid intellectual function, age and education. Depression (p=.002), cognitive symptoms (p=.001), fatigue (p=.000003) and pain (p=.024) scores were greater in the patient group. PSS patients demonstrated inferior performance relative to controls in psychomotor processing (p=.027) and verbal reasoning (p=.007). PSS patients with and without depression had similar performance on multiple tests, but depressed patients had significantly lower scores for executive function (p=.041). Cognitive symptoms correlated with verbal memory (p=.048), whereas pain correlated with executive function measures (Stroop, p=.017) and working memory (Trails B, p=.036). In the regression model, depression and verbal memory were independent predictors that accounted for 61 % of the variance in cognitive symptoms. Conclusion The Prof-M is a simple self-report measure which could be useful in screening PSS subjects who may benefit from detailed psychometric evaluation. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that depression and verbal memory impairment are overlapping but independent aspects of neural involvement in PSS. While pain and depression are significant confounders of cognitive function in PSS, this study suggests that impaired verbal reasoning ability in PSS is not attributable to pain or depression.

Physical activity but not sedentary activity is reduced in primary Sjögren’s syndrome

“…Depression is an independent predictor of cognitive symptoms [34], strongly correlates with functional disability [31] and leads to more physician visits and work disability in PSS patients [35]. Strömbeck et al [8] did not find an association between depression and an indirect measure of aerobic capacity.…”

Cognitive Dysfunction and Dementia in Primary Sjögren’s Syndrome

“…Cognitive functions were tested in six previous studies [3–8]: in three studies, all patients have been tested [3, 5, 8], and four studies gave details of the cognitive results [3–5, 8]. In the study of Malinow et al [4], 16 out of 40 patients were tested, and seven were found to have mild cognitive impairment, mainly of attention functions.…”

“…Delalande et al reported central nervous system involvement in 56 out of 82 patients (68%) with PSS and neurological manifestations [2]. Cognitive manifestations have been observed in 10–50% of PSS patients [3–8]. Few studies have described the cognitive pattern of PSS [4, 5].…”

A short neuropsychological evaluation of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome

“…Among the studies that have used neuropsychological tests, Mataró et al 18 , Martinez et al 7 , and Segal et al 19 used extensive batteries composed of approximately nine neuropsychological tests. The present study followed the design of Martinez et al 7 , with slight modifications, such as a reduction of the number of tests.…”