Cognitive impairment in patients with comorbid recurrent affective and panic disorders

Abstract

To designate the targets for medical and psychotherapeutic effects in patients with comorbid recurrent affective and panic disorders based on the study of cognitive functions. A battery of pathopsychological tests («Schulte Table», «Corrective Test», «Ten Words test», «Cube Drawing Technique», Binet and Berstein Tests) has been used to assess the neuro-cognitive status of 60 patients with symptoms of recurrent affective (depressive) and panic disorders. According to ICD-10, 27 patients have been diagnosed with recurrent affective disorder with a mild or moderate depressive episode (RAD, F33.0, F33.1) in combination with panic disorder (PD, F41.0). The control group included 33 patients with recurrent affective disorder with a mild to moderate depressive episode (RAD, F33.0, F33.1) without panic disorder. All the patients showed the changes in the cognitive sphere. In patients with recurrent affective disorder in combination with panic disorder, cognitive impairment was more pronounced than that in patients from the control group. Cognitive functions in patients with recurrent affective and comorbid panic disorder were distinguished by their peculiarity, which manifested itself in «left hemisphere» disorders in the form of paroxysmal emotional disorders with the predominance of fear and anxiety affect, work dysfunction in a number of neuropsychological factors: successiveness, spatial, inertness-mobility, for which mediobasal and subcortical parts of the brain are responsible. The targets for medical and psychotherapeutic effects in patients with comorbid panic and recurrent depressive disorder are: attention, auditory and verbal memory, thinking components (logical and spatial). It is reasonable to use neuropsychological correction of cognitive impairment in this group of patients.