COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT AND NEGATIVE SYMPTOMS IN GERIATRIC CHRONIC-SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS - A FOLLOW-UP-STUDY

Cognitive impairment is increasingly recognized as an important aspect of schizophrenia. Since cognitive impairment has many features in com mon with the negative symptoms of the illness, it is possible that som e of the characteristics attributed to negative symptoms are due to an association with cognitive impairments. In order to test this hypothe sis, 174 chronically hospitalized geriatric schizophrenic patients wer e examined twice at a 1-year follow-up with ratings of the severity of their symptoms (using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale: PANSS ) and assessments of cognitive functions with the Mini-Mental State Ex amination and a brief neuropsychological battery aimed at the typical impairments seen in dementia. Positive symptoms were unassociated with any of the cognitive variables, while negative symptom severity was c orrelated with each of the cognitive measures. In the cross-temporal a nalyses, cognitive impairments were more stable over time than negativ e symptom scores, but cognitive impairment did not predict the severit y of any negative symptom over time. At each assessment, however, cogn itive impairment was strongly correlated with each of the seven negati ve symptoms studied. These data indicate that cognitive impairments an d negative symptoms are related, but discriminable, features in schizo phrenia and that the considerable overlap between some negative sympto ms and estimates of cognitive function may suggest a rethinking of the definition of some of these symptoms.