Memory, attention, function, and mood among patients with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder

We report a study of memory, attention, function, and mood among 36 male Vi etnam War Veterans suffering from chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PT SD). PTSD subjects (N = 36) were in good physical health, suffering from mo derate depression, and not knowingly suffering from other mental disorders. Control subjects (N = 18) were in good physical health, not knowingly suff ering from a mental disorder, and matched with PTSD subject for age, sex, a nd level of education. Assessment instruments for PTSD subjects included th e PostTraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale(TM) (clinician administered), the H amilton Depression Rating Scale (clinician administered), and the Cognitive Evaluation Protocol(R) (CEP), a touchscreen computer assessment instrument that is self-administered by subjects. CEP was administered twice to PTSD subjects I month apart; other instruments were administered at the beginnin g of the study. Control subjects took CEP once and were administered the Ha milton Depression Rating Scale and the PostTraumatic Stress Diagnostic Scal e once. Compared with control subjects, PTSD subjects performed significant ly less well on CEP for the three cognitive domains of attention, memory, a nd function and had highly elevated depression scores. An interaction betwe en depression and memory was found but not with depression and attention. T here was no evidence of reduced information processing speed among PTSD sub jects. Comparisons between the three assessment instruments showed a high d egree of cross-assessment agreement. The findings are consistent with repor ts that chronic PTSD is associated with compromised memory, attention, and function. The study documents the feasibility of using self-administrated t ouchscreen computer programs to evaluate and track features of mental disor ders.