[Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and cognition disorders. Neuropsychological study of a population of 26 patients].

Typical amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is described as a motoneuron disease which spared cognitive functions. Recent studies reported cognitive impairement associated with classical ALS. Gallasi and al. (1985) detect subtle cognitive impairement sparing memory in a population of 22 patients affected with sporadic motoneuron disease. Iwasaki and al. (1990) finds lower scores, including memory tests. Our study evaluated 26 patients compared with 26 control subjects with neurospychological tests (rapid evaluation of cognitive function fluency, Weschler adult intelligence scale, Wisconsin cards, Rey scheme, memory tests - Luria -, trail making, visual retentional test of Benton Violon Seyll test). All the neuropsychological tests were significantly lower for the patients group. The cognitive impairement is global: memory and frontal functions were not spared and this impairement is also subtle. It may easily go undetected without tests. We cannot isolate a cortical or subcortical profile of the deterioration.