Cognitive impairment in remitted and non-remitted depressive patients: A follow-up comparison between first and recurrent episodes

Abstract

Cognitive impairment is a core symptom of depressive disorders associated with poor social function. New research is needed to analyze depression-related symptoms in cognitive impairment and to observe if they are reversible or not during clinical remission in patients with or without previous episodes. None of the previous studies has analyzed the differences between first and recurrent episodes in a long-term follow-up study related with remission state. The aim of our study was to compare cognitive performance and assess the impact of previous depressive episodes in a sample of patients in acute phase and in remission six month later. 79 depressive patients were assessed at baseline. The instruments used for clinical and cognitive assessment were: Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Mini-Mental State Examination and the Clinical Global Impression Rating Scales, Trail Making Test parts A and B, Digital Span subtest of WAIS, Stroop Colour Word Test, Tower of London, Controlled Verbal Fluency Task, Semantic Verbal Fluency and Finger Tapping Test. A repeated measures MANCOVA with education as covariate was used. No differences were found at baseline between first episode and recurrent depressive patients. At six month, remitted patients scored significant better in TMT-A, TMT-B, Animals and Tower of London total time. Remitted first depressive patients scored significant worse than remitted recurrent depressive patients. The main finding of the study is the effect of remission on cognitive function despite previous episodes. However first episode remitted patients seemed to have poor access to long term memory than recurrent remitted patients.