The Influences of Antipsychotics Therapy at Cognitive Impairments in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Significant degree of cognitive impairment represents one of the basic cornerstones among clinical manifestations of the schizophrenia spectrum disorders and accordingly to some authors it is present in up to 75% patients with these syndromes. The aim of this study was to examine degree of cognitive impairment, firstly among patients on first generation antipsychotics therapy (FGA) compared to the patients on second generation antipsychotics therapy (SGA), and secondly to compare both groups of patients with healthy controls.

Material and methods

Prospective, parallel research was conducted, in which the sample of patients and employees of Specialized Psychiatric Hospital Kotor was tested with Montreal Cognition Scale (MoCA). There were 66 participants in the samples and they were divided on four subgroups: (1) patients with FGA; (2) patients with SGA; (3) patients with combined FGA and SGA; (4) Healthy controls.

Results

All groups of patients had statistically significantly lower mean MoCA scores in the comparison with healthy controls. The fact that among 83.7% of patients was diagnosed significant degree of cognitive decline (MoCA score bellow 26) strongly speaks in favour of high sensitivity of MoCA test in detection of cognitive impairment among patients with schizophrenia spectrum psychotic disorders. In addition, the group of patients with FGA also had statistically significantly lower mean MoCA score compared to patients with SGA.

Discussion

The mechanisms of explanation of these results can be additionally enlightened with further studies on larger samples of patients, which would investigate the correlation between extrapyramidal symptomatology, anticholinergic therapy and cognitive deficit.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.