Prospective memory deficit in acute stroke patients with cognitive impairment

Abstract

Objective To explore the characteristics of prospective memory ( PM ) deficit in acute stroke patients with cognitive impairment. Methods Sixty patients suffering from acute stroke who met the inclusion criteria in screening with the neurobehavioral cognitive status examination (NCSE) were enrolled into the experimental group. Sixty healthy participants who matched the experimental group in gender distribution and average age and education level were assigned as a control group. All the participants completed several neuropsychological evaluations,including the Chinese version of the Cambridge prospective memory test ( C-CAMPROMT), the Chinese version of the Rivermead behavior memory test (C-RBMT), a digit-span test (DS), the Chinese version of Stroop's word-color test (C-SWCT) and a color trail test (CTT). Results Time-based PM (TBPM) scores in the control group were significantly higher than in the experimental group. At the intention initiation stage TBPM scores in the control group were also significantly better than in the experimental group. The TBPM performance of the experimental group was significantly worse than that of the controls when PM performance was compared with other cognitive functions controlled for. Conclusions The acute stroke patients with cognitive impairment showed greater TBPM performance deficits than the controls. This may have resulted from impairment at the intention initiation stage. TBPM deficits may exist independently. If so, they could serve as an assessment of cognitive impairment after stroke. Key words: Acute stroke; Cognitive impairment; Prospective memory