Jülide Öncü, Reşat ilişer and Banu Kuran
Aim of this study: We aimed to show the differences in cognitive complaints and their relations with clinical variables between the subjects with fibromyalgia, age-matched healthy controls and older-aged group with Short Test of Mental Status. By means of covering a broad range of cognitive functions of STMS, mild cognitive impairment in patients with FMS and older-aged women could be demonstrated easily and we could obtain the similar results in other studies using objective neurophsychologic methods without using these tests that was the striking aspect of our study. Considering the difficulty of the objective tests in clinical setting, and since it is important to characterize easily the nature of the dysfunction in clinical setting in order cope with this chronic disorder, our results might be useful in helping patients with FM and older-aged women.
Background: this study aimed to compare the complaints of cognitive dysfunction in patients with fibromyalgia(FM) and older-aged women and to detect the relationship of the variables pain, fatigue and sleep problems with these complaints
Methods: 86 patients with FM(between the ages of 25-40), age-matched 75 healthy controls and 80 olderaged women with cognitive complaints(between the ages of 60-75) were analyzed. Perceived level of cognitive impairment was asssesed with the items in Short test of Mental Status(STMS). Measures of depressive symptoms, pain and fatigue severity were obtained from the Beck Depression Inventory(BDI), Visual Analog Scale(VAS) and fatigue severity scale(FSS). And measures of subjective sleep disturbance and relevant demographic data were obtained from an open-ended questionnaire.
Results: Individuals with FM scored significantly lower on total score self-report measures of dyscognition (28.8+3.3) (mean+SD) than did healthy controls (37.6+0.6) (mean+SD)(p<0.05) and scored similarly in older-aged women (29.9+3.7)(mean+SD) (p>0.05). The most severly affected functions were attention and immediate recall in patients with FM however, it was delayed recall in older-aged women. The group of patients with FM showed a lower performance than older-aged women in attention (p<0.01) and immediate recall (p<0.05). However, older-aged group significantly differed from FM group in terms of arithmetic, constructional praxis and abstraction subdimensions of STMS. Fatigue and pain severity were the strongest contributing factors for complaints of cognitive dysfunction in patients with FM but, age and sleep disturbance were the most significant problems influencing the cognitive status in older-aged women(p<0.05).
Conclusion: Mild cognitive impairment was shown to be associated with the two groups studied, but with significant differences between them.