Assessment of Congnitive Disorders in Alcoholics Using the 7 Minute Screening Battery

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Chronic alcohol consumption has been known to result in various neurocognitive deficits. Many neuropsychological studies revealed that the major disturbances occurred in the executive function learning and short-term memory. visuospatial performance function, perceptuo-motor skills and abstraction and problem solving abilities. This study was done to identify which cognitive areas might be mainly affected. METHODS: The cognitive disturbance was evaluated using the Korean Version of the Mini Mental State Examination(MMSEK) and the 7 Minute Screen(7MS) in male inpatients with alcohol dependence(N=31) as well as in age and education level matched healthy male controls(N=30) Four individual tests of the 7MS were consisted of the Benton Temporal Orientation Test the Enhanced Cued Recall, the Clock Drawing and the Category Fluency. RESULTS: 1) The average scores of four individual test of the 7MS for the alcoholics were 2.77+/-4.38 for the Benton Temporal Orientation Test. 13.90+/-2.02 for the Memory Test(the Cued Recall 6.77+/-1.94, the Uncued Recall 7.10+/-2.45), 5.84+/-1.86 for the Clock Drawing and 12.58+/-3.29 for the Category Fluency. Except the Benton Temporal Orientation Test, there were statistically significant differences between test scores of alcoholics and those of controls(p or =24(N=28) 3) Four individual test scores of the 7MS seemed to have statistically significant association with such variables as MMSE-K, duration of alcohol drinking blood magnesium concentration liver function and thyroid function. CONCLUSION: Mild deficits of cognitive areas such as orientation, memory, visuospatial abilities and verbal fluency could be found in alcohol dependence.