Cognitive and motor features in geriatric bipolar disorder

STREJILEVICH S.A., MARTINO D.J., IGOA A., MARENGO E., SCÁPOLA M., PERINOT L., AIS E.

Santiago Chile

Congreso; 2nd International Congress of Biological Psychiatry; 2007

Introduction: Background: Elderly people with bipolar disorder will be one third of the population affected by this disorder in a few years. Although it has been mentioned that it could be an increase of neurode- generative evolution among these people, data regarding cognitive func- tion are very scarce. Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the cognitive profile in old patients with euthymic bipolar disorder and its relationship with clinical and functional variables. Method: Twenty patients with euthymic bipolar disorder older than 60 years old, as well as twenty healthy controls matched by age and educa- tional level were included. In addition to Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, Young Mania Rating Scale, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and General Assessment Functioning, clinical evaluation included meas- ures of exposition to psychotropic drugs and UPDRS as a measure of extrapiramidal symptoms.  All subjects completed an extensive neuropsy- chological battery selected to asses IQ, verbal memory, attention, psy- chomotor speed, language, executive functions, and facial emotion recog- nition. Results:  Patients with bipolar disorder had more extrapiramidal symp- toms and worse performance than healthy controls in psychomotor speed, verbal memory, executive functions and recognition of emotions even after controlling sub-clinical symptomatology. These findings are not associated with age at onset or length of illness either with current pharmacological exposition. Psychosocial functioning was negatively cor- related with performance in psychomotor speed, attention and executive functions, and correlation was almost significant with extrapiramidal symptoms.