A contrast between the cognitive function of patients with simple leukoaraeosis and subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy

Liang Lin-ping; He Yan; Guo Hong-zhi

doi:10.3321/j.issn:1673-8225.2006.06.005

Abstract：BACKGROUND: Cognitive function of simple leukoaraeosis (LA) and subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy (SAE) is a part of research in cerebrovascular neuropsychology, however, there is no contrast study on cognitive function between the two diseases. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the different features in cognitive function among patients with simple leukoaraeosis, subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy and simple leukoaraeosis combined with cerebral infarction. DESIGN: Randomized controlled observation SETTING: Department of Neurological Medicine, Qilu Hospital, Shandong University. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 91 cases of patients with cerebrovascular disease diagnosed in Department of Neurological Medicine of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University from March 1997 to May 2000 were selected. All the patients participated in the observation voluntarily. They were divided into 3 groups according to the type of disease, with 27 cases in simple leukoaraeosis group, 33 cases in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy group and 31 cases in simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction group.Additionally, 30 healthy cases were selected as control group. All the subjects in the above groups participated in the observation voluntarily. METHODS: Assessment on cognitive function and memory ability was conducted on the subjects in each group, and contrast analysis was performed. Mini-mental state examination was used for detecting cognitive function. Patients whose score was less than 17, 20, 22, 23 respectively according to different educational degree (illiteracy, primary school, middle school, university), would be diagnosed as dementia. Clinical me mory scale A edited by Psychology Institute of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences was used for detecting memory ability including associative learning, directive memory, recognition of nonsense figure, image free recall and portrait characteristics associative recall. Conversed the above 5 items of detecting results to scores of scales and calculated out the memory quotients. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: State of cognitive disorder and scores of mini-mental state examination and clinical memory scale of subjects in each group. RESULTS: All the 91 cases of patients with cerebrovascular disease and 30 healthy control cases entered results analysis without any drop out. ① Comparison of the state of cognitive disorder among subjects in each group: There were 21 cases of mild cognitive disorder (77.8%) in simple leukoaraeosis group, 8 cases of moderate cognitive disorder (24.2%) and 25 cases of dementia (75.8%) in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy group, 6 cases of moderate cognitive disorder (19.4%) and 24 cases of dementia (77.4%) in simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction group. ② Comparison of the scores of mini-mental state examination among and clinical memory scale: Scores of the two scales in simple leukoaraeosis group, subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy group and simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction group were significantly lower than those in healthy control group (t=2.14-3.81, P ＜ 0.05-0.01). The scores in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy group and simple leukoaraeosis+ cerebral infarction group were significantly lower than those in simple leukoaraeosis group (t=2.13-3.37, P ＜ 0.05-0.01).CONCLUSION: ① The cognitive impairment in simple leukoaraeosis is mainly mild cognitive disorder. ② The cognitive impairments in subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy and simple leukoaraeosis + cerebral infarction are mainly moderate cognitive disorder and dementia which are obviously severer than mild cognitive disorder. Cognitive function can be used as reference indicator for assessing simple leukoaraeosis and subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy.Liang LP, He Y, Guo HZ.A contrast between the cognitive function of patients with simple leukoaraeosis and subcortical arterioselerotic encephalopathy.