Cognitive impairment and dementia in prisoners of war

Abstract

To the Editor: We read with interest the article by Sulway et al.1 The authors report that 47 years after their liberation, WW II prisoners of war (POWs) of the Japanese were not demented more frequently than non-POW veterans. In addition, they report that POWs and non-POW veterans do not differ significantly in cognitive performance on some neuropsychologic tests. Their conclusions could have serious consequences for POWs with compensation claims, and some possible limitations of their study should be stressed. Although the methods were not the same, the results gathered by Sulway et al.1 disagree with those of previous studies of survivors of Nazi concentration camps,2-9 Japanese POW camps, and Korean war camps,10,11 which report intellectual impairment. Sulway et al.1 discussed some reasons that might explain the discrepancy between their work and previous studies. …