-
- Luis D Medina, Linda Hirshberg, Michael J Taylor, Paul E Gilbert, and Robert K Heaton.
- From the Department of Psychology, University of Houston.
- J Clin Rheumatol. 2019 Sep 1; 25 (6): 252-257.
Background/ObjectiveFibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic pain syndrome of unknown etiology that can include subjective cognitive symptoms and variable evidence of cognitive dysfunction. Rates of occurrence and severity of cognitive impairment remain unclear. Additionally, comparison of this group with other pain conditions has been limited. The current cross-sectional study sought to identify rates of clinically significant cognitive impairment in FM and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using an automated clinical rating approach.MethodsA total of 61 females (32 with FM, 29 with RA) completed a comprehensive neuropsychological (NP) battery and an assessment of personality and psychological distress. All study measures were completed in one visit and all participants were recruited over the span of 3 years. Demographically corrected NP scores were used to compare participants with normative expectations and a summary score was calculated to compare groups on NP impairment.ResultsCompared to normative expectations using a 1 standard deviation cutoff, moderately increased rates of cognitive deficits were observed in both groups (FM = 23.3%, RA = 34.5%), with most test scores in affected individuals falling in the mild to moderate ranges of impairment. Compared to RA, FM participants endorsed higher and significant levels of psychological symptoms overall. These were not associated with cognitive performance in either patient group.ConclusionsIncreased rates of cognitive dysfunction as well as psychological distress exist in both FM and RA compared to a normative sample. However, psychological distress was unrelated to cognition in both groups. These findings have implications regarding the clinical presentation of individuals with FM and RA.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*
,_underline_
or**bold**
. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>
and subscript<sub>text</sub>
. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3.
, hyphens-
or asterisks*
. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
- Images can be included with:
![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
- For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)
inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]
to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote.
.