Evaluation and analysis of cognitive function in chronic renal failure patients

Abstract

To explore the characteristics of cognitive impairment and correlation analysis in patients with chronic renal failure (CRF). The Addenbrooke's cognitive examination revised (ACE-R) scale was used to evaluate the cognitive function for 101 cases of chronic renal failure patients (group CRF) receiving outpatient and inpatient treatments and selected 30 individuals with normal renal function as normal controls (group NC) for cross-sectional analysis. T test, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and other statistical methods were adopted for comparing differences. (1) Compared with group NC (83.4 ± 6.5), group CRF (71.9 ± 17.6) showed significantly statistical difference on Addenbrooke's cognitive examination revised (ACE-R) scale scores (P < 0.01); (2)compared with normal controls, the patients with CRF had significantly statistical difference on the scores of visual spatial ability (11.5 ± 3.2, 14.0 ± 3.0 respectively), language fluency (7.0 ± 2.6, 8.7 ± 1.9) (P < 0.01) and memory (18.1 ± 7.0, 21.5 ± 3.6 respectively) (P < 0.05); (3) the cognitive function of patients with CRF were significantly positive correlated with glomerular filtration rate (GFR) (r = 0.614, P < 0.01) and negatively correlated with the duration of illness (r = -0.492, P < 0.01); (4) From ROC curve and the area under curve (AUC), ACE-R scale (AUC = 0.680) showed a higher sensitivity than mini-mental state examination scale (AUC = 0.576) in assessing cognitive function in patients with CRF (P < 0.01). (1) Under similar basic conditions of age, level of education and background, CRF patients showed significant damage overall cognitive function, cognitive impairment in visual spatial ability, executive function, long-term memory and logical judgment ability was particularly impaired. Immediate and delayed memory, attention, orientation and language ability also manifested different degrees of decline; (2) the severity of cognitive impairment in patients with CFR was closely related with the level of GFR; (3) the ACE-R scale showed a higher sensitivity than mini-mental state examination scale in assessing cognitive function in patients with CRF.