Does treating depression improve cognitive functioning in depressed patients with multiple sclerosis?

713 Abstracts /Archives of Clinical Neuropsychologv I.5 (2000) 653-850 other measures. The findings suggest that despite the appeal of quick scoring methods for the ROCF, BQSS qualitative ratings hold better promise in evaluating patients with epilepsy. Does treating depression improve cognitive multiple sclerosis? Cox DS, Mohr DC, Epstein L. functioning in depressed patients with Participants were relapsing MS patients (N=63) enrolled in a depression treatment study (females = 46; mean age = 43.9, SD = 9.98, Ambulation Index = 2.57, range O-9). Patients completed a neuropsychological screening battery at baseline and post-treatment (16 weeks) which included the HDRS, BDI, Digit Span, Symbol Digit, 7-24, Animal Naming, COWAT, Stroop, RAVLT, and 15 Item BNT. Patients’ scores on the RAVLT-Delayed Recall declined significantly over the 16 week treatment period (t = 2.37, p = 0.021). There were also significant increases between patients’ scores from Animal Naming to Grocery Naming, and from the CFL Trial of the COWAT to the PBW Trial. Because the forms were not counterbalanced at pre- and post-treatment administration, these changes are difficult to interpret. However, the lack of consistency in the direction of change suggests these changes are due to random error. To test the hypothesis that treatment of depression can result in improvement in neuropsychological function, slopes analyses were performed. For the sample as a whole, improved patient performance on Symbol Digit Backward correlated with reduced depression (r=0.382, p= 0.006) as measured by the BDI. This relationship is due to the patients who demonstrated a 50% reduction in HRSD scores (n= 15, r= 0.503, p = 0.047) and does not hold when these patients are excluded from analyses. Improved patient performance on Trials l-5 of the RAVLT negatively correlated with improvements in depression on the BDI at post-test (r = - 0.338, p = 0.019) for the sample as a whole. Factor analysis of the neuropsychological measures reveals a 4-factor solution, with RAVLT Trials l-5 loading on the Attention factor. This improvement in performance on Trials l-5 on the RAVLT may reflect a learning effect, although other studies have suggested that expected learning effects are not found in patients with MS (Rao, 1986; Rao et al., 1994) However, patients’ performance on measures of memory, learning, simple verbal language did not demonstrate learning effects. Patient performance on all tasks was mildly impaired (around - 1 SD), as is consistent with past research on cognitive functioning in MS (Ryan et al., 1996; Tsolaki, 1994; Franklin et al., 1988). The finding that patient performance on moderately complex tasks of verbal attention may be further impaired by depression and may improve with successful treatment of depression is consistent with some findings (Amett, 1999). However, the lack of consistency in the direction of our findings is more consistent with past research suggesting that cognitive deficits in MS are not impacted by co-morbid depression (DeLuca et al., 1995; Amato, 1995; Moller et al., 1994). Specific neuroanatomic lesion locations multiple sclerosis Cox D, Mohr DC, Epstein L, Huang L. related to impaired cognitive performance in Participants were relapsing MS patients (N= 31) enrolled in a depression treatment study (females = 23; mean age = 43.6, SD = 9.8, EDSS = 2.9, range O-6). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies were completed on all patients. Regions of T-2 hyperintensity corresponding to  (...truncated)