Inamura Keisuke, Shinagawa Shunichiro, Nagata Tomoyuki, Tagai Kenji, Nukariya Kazutaka, Nakayama Kazuhiko
Department of Psychiatry, Jikei University School of Medicine, Kashiwa Hospital, Chiba, Japan (KI, TN, Kazutaka Nukariya).
Department of Psychiatry, Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan (SS, KT, Kazuhiko Nakayama).
Psychosomatics. 2015 Sep-Oct;56(5):486-94. doi: 10.1016/j.psym.2014.10.004. Epub 2014 Oct 8.
Late-life somatic symptom disorder (SSD) is characterized by various aging-associated factors, such as a functional decline, psychosocial problems, and cognitive dysfunction. However, the details of the cognitive dysfunction that occur in late-life SSD are still unknown.
The aims of this study were to reveal the cognitive profile of patients with late-life SSD and to evaluate how cognitive dysfunction affects disease severity.
We compared the cognitive profiles of patients with late-life SSD (n = 40) with those of normal control subjects (n = 21). In addition, we divided the patients with late-life SSD into mild-to-moderate (n = 24) and severe (n = 16) groups and compared the cognitive profiles of the 3 groups.
Patients with late-life SSD exhibited a lower Mini-Mental State Examination total score and attention decline. In the 3-group comparison, the severe group had a lower Mini-Mental State Examination score and Frontal Assessment Battery score than the normal control group, whereas no significant difference was seen between the mild-to-moderate and the normal control groups.
Our data suggest that different cognitive patterns may exist depending on disease severity, possibly indicating differences in pathogenesis.
