Presence and significant determinants of cognitive impairment in a large sample of patients with Multiple Sclerosis
Abstract
Objectives: To investigate the presence and the nature of cognitive impairment in a large sample of patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), and to identify clinical and demographic determinants of cognitive impairment in MS. Methods: 303 patients with MS and 279 healthy controls were administered the Brief Repeatable Battery of Neuropsychological tests (BRB-N); measures of pre-morbid verbal competence and neuropsychiatric measures were also administered. Results: Patients and healthy controls were matched for age, gender, education and pre-morbid verbal Intelligence Quotient. Patients presenting with cognitive impairment were 108/303 (35.6%). In the overall group of participants, the significant predictors of the most sensitive BRB-N scores were: presence of MS, age, education, and Vocabulary. The significant predictors when considering MS patients only were: course of MS, age, education, vocabulary, and depression. Using logistic regression analyses, significant determinants of the presence of cognitive impairment in relapsing-remitting MS patients were: duration of illness (OR = 1.053, 95% CI = 1.010-1.097, p = 0.015), Expanded Disability Status Scale score (OR = 1.247, 95% CI = 1.024-1.517, p = 0.028), and vocabulary (OR = 0.960, 95% CI = 0.936-0.984, p = 0.001), while in the smaller group of progressive MS patients these predictors did not play a significant role in determining the cognitive outcome. Conclusions: Our results corroborate the evidence about the presence and the nature of cognitive impairment in a large sample of patients with MS. Furthermore, our findings identify significant clinical and demographic determinants of cognitive impairment in a large sample of MS patients for the first time. Implications for further research and clinical practice were discussed.
Citation
Borghi , M , Cavallo , M , Carletto , S , Ostacoli , L , Zuffranieri , M , Picci , R L , Scavelli , F , Johnston , H , Furlan , P M , Bertolotto , A & Malucchi , S 2013 , ' Presence and significant determinants of cognitive impairment in a large sample of patients with Multiple Sclerosis ' PLoS One , vol 8 , no. 7 , e69820 . DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0069820
Publication
PLoS One
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1932-6203Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright: © 2013 Borghi et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Description
This work was supported by FISM - Fondazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla (www.aism.it) - Cod. 2009/R/17.Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.