Journal Article

Low cognitive functioning and depressive symptoms in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and systemic sclerosis: a clinical study

Charalampopoulou, Marina, Aligianni, Suzana Ιoanna, Politis, Antonios, Demertzis, Antonios Alexandros, Daoussis, Dimitrios, Alexopoulos, Panagiotis, Gourzis, Philippos, Εconomou, Polychronis, Skondra, Maria, Georgiou, Eliza Eleni-Zacharoula

2023

Overview

Background Recently, cognitive deficits occurring in rheumatic diseases have attracted scientific attention. Cognitive symptoms in patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) have not been thoroughly studied. This study aimed to assess cognitive function and its relationship with depressive symptoms in RA and SSc and compare it to mild neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease (MiND) and to individuals without cognitive impairment. Methods Cognitive function and depressive symptoms were tapped with the Cognitive Telephone Screening Instrument plus (COGTEL+), the Serial Seven Test (SST), the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Geriatric Depression scale-15 (GDS), respectively. Statistical analyses included between groups-, correlation- and regression analyses. Demographic characteristics were considered in the regression models. Results The study included 30 individuals with RA, 24 with SSc, 26 adults without cognitive impairment and 33 individuals with MiND. Lower performance in verbal short-term memory, concentration/attention, verbal fluency and MMSE in patients with RA compared to individuals without cognitive impairment was detected. Of note, performance on verbal fluency, concentration/attention, inductive reasoning and MMSE was lower in RA compared to MiND. Individuals with SSc performed worse in verbal fluency and in MMSE in comparison to adults without cognitive deficits. Verbal fluency deficits in SSc exceeded that in MiND. Performance on MMSE, COGTEL+, prospective memory, working memory, verbal fluency and concentration/attention was related to GDS scores, which did not vary across the groups. Conclusions Patients with RA and SSc encountered cognitive dysfunction, which partially pertains to depressive symptoms. Of note, the severity of cognitive dysfunction in many cases exceeded that of MiND.

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Alzheimer's disease / Care and treatment / Chi-square test / Cognition / Cognition & reasoning / Cognitive ability / Complications and side effects / Concentration/attention / Depression, Mental / Diagnosis / Hospitals / Inductive reasoning / Language / Lung diseases / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Memory / Mental depression / Neurodegenerative diseases / Outpatient care facilities / Psychiatry / Psychological aspects / Psychotherapy / Quality of life / Regression analysis / Rheumatic diseases / Rheumatoid arthritis / Rheumatology / Scleroderma / Scleroderma (Disease) / Short term memory / Statistical analysis / Systemic scleroderma / Systemic sclerosis / Ulcers / Variance analysis / Verbal fluency