Some characteristics of disorders of cognitive functions in the primary episode of bipolar affective disorder

Abstract

The problem of bipolar affective disorder (BAD) is one of the central problems of modern psychiatry; one of its key manifestations is impaired cognitive functioning. The aim of the work was to study the features of cognitive functioning of patients with the primary episode (PE) of BAD, taking into account the gender factor and the clinical type of the primary episode. Based on examination of 65 men and 88 women with PE of BAD using the Trail Making Test was found in the performance of TMT-A in patients with depressive type of disease pronounced symptoms of cognitive deficits. In patients with depression the performance of the TMT-B test is significantly worse than the normative ones, in patients with manic type are better, than with depressive, but worse than normal, due to instability of attention. In patients with the mixed type, the TMT-B indexes are similar to those of the patients with the depressive type. Conclusions. The PE of BAD is accompanied by pronounced manifestations of cognitive deficits in depressive and manic types, and close to normal rates of the TMT test in patients with manic type. In this case, the primary is clinical type of PE, while the impact of gender on cognitive impairment is insignificant.

Keywords

• bipolar affective disorder
• primary episode
• cognitive disorders