ABSTRACT
Background: Cognitive deficits among patients with schizophrenia are now recognized as being widelyprevalent and one of the most disabling aspects of the illness, as they are associated with poor functionaloutcomes. Psychotropic medications and benzodiazepines, which are often used in these patients couldimpact cognition as could the extrapyramidal side-effects. Yet, here are hardly any Indian studies on thesubject. The aim of this study was to determine whether cognitive dysfunction among patients withschizophrenia is associated with extrapyramidal symptoms, anticholinergic burden of psychotropic drugsand benzodiazepine dosageMethodology: 40 clinically stable, out-patients suffering from schizophrenia, without any pre-existingneurological disorders between the ages of 18 to 60 years, who had been compliant with medications wereselected. Extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS) were assessed using the modified Simpson-Angus scale,anticholinergic burden (ACB) was evaluated using the Anticholinergic burden scale. The benzodiazepinedosage was noted. Cognition was assessed using the Stroop Color and Word Test and the Wisconsin Cardsorting test. The correlations between scores on EPS and ACB and neuropsychological tests were carriedout using partial correlations controlling for positive and negative symptoms.Results: There were no significant associations noted between extrapyramidal symptoms, anticholinergicburden, benzodiazepine dosage and performance on the neurocognitive tests used.Conclusion: Methodological differences make it difficult to construct comparisons across studies but thereis some evidence to support our findings