| Abstract: |
Background: Schizophrenia is a severe, persistent, debilitating, and poorly understood psychiatric disorder that probably consists of several separate illnesses. Symptoms include disturbances in thoughts (or cognitions), mood (or affects), perceptions, and relationships with others. The hallmark symptoms of schizophrenia are auditory hallucinations and delusions, which are fixed false beliefs. Impaired information processing is a less vivid symptom that is highly disruptive. People with schizophrenia have lower rates of employment, marriage, and independent living than other people. The term ‘cognitive function’ tends to apply to the higher mental processes that include such domains as memory, attention, perception, action, problem solving and mental imagery. Meanwhile the term ‘neurocognitive’ is used to describe cognitive functions closely linked to the function of particular areas, neural pathways, or cortical networks in the brain. Therefore, their understanding is closely linked to the practice of ‘neuropsychology’ which is an interdisciplinary branch of psychology and neuroscience that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to specific psychological processes and overt behaviors. Cognitive deficits are stable over time in most patients and are present before the identification of other symptoms of schizophrenia. Cognitive impairment has important functional implications. As in other neuropsychiatric conditions poorer cognitive performance is found in patients whose overall level of functional performance is lower.Objectives: Aim of the work was translation & culture adaptation of RBANS and to assess cognitive impairment and neurological soft signs in schizophrenic patients.Patients and methods: This study was randomized, cross-sectional. Forty patients with the diagnosis of schizophrenia according to DSM-IV was selected from Inpatient and Outpatient Clinics of the Department of Psychiatry, Zagazig University Hospitals from the date of starting the study up till fulfilling the sample size and forty non-neuropsychiatric controls were included. Both sexes were included. Age range was between 16 and 65 years old. All patients were subjected to semi-structured clinical interview for collecting the necessary data on subjects, demographic and clinical variables (sociodemographic data, history of illness, family history, past history, level of education, work record, sexual and marital history, and history of substance abuse), psychopathology using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and full psychiatric examination. Neurological soft signs were assessed with Neurological Evaluation Scale (NES). The battery contains 26 discrete items.Rresults: Cognitive functions were assessed by performing tests for cognitive functions [Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) to test for memory, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) to test for executive functioning, Continuous Performance Test (CPT) to test for attention e.g. picture completion. Neuropsychological Status was assessed by Repeatable Battery (RBANS).Conclusion: neurological signs and cognitive impairments are both important manifestations of putative trails associated with schizophrenia. Each of the areas consists of subcomponents which bear complex relationship with one another. Cross-sectional data so far have not detected significant changes in most areas of neurocognitive impairments with time. This implies that significant deterioration in neurocognitive functions probably occurs early around the onset of the illness and remains stable thereafter..
|
|
|