Indian Journal of Private Psychiatry

Register      Login

VOLUME 14 , ISSUE 1 ( January-June, 2020 ) > List of Articles

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Neuropsychological Functions in Short- and Long-term Alcohol Abstinence

Rajmohan Velayudhan, Suni M Saraswathy

Citation Information : Velayudhan R, Saraswathy SM. Neuropsychological Functions in Short- and Long-term Alcohol Abstinence. Ind J Priv Psychiatry 2020; 14 (1):26-29.

DOI: 10.5005/jp-journals-10067-0054

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

Published Online: 28-09-2020

Copyright Statement:  Copyright © 2020; The Author(s).


Abstract

Background: Evidence suggests significant impairment across multiple cognitive functions and remains stable during the first few months of abstinence from alcohol and abates by one year. Methodology: The study was conducted in a tertiary care teaching hospital on 20 alcohol-dependent patients each in the short- (STA) and long-term abstinence (LTA) group. Both the groups compared were age and sex matched. The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) screening was used to diagnose alcohol dependence. The following neuropsychological tests were done to assess the case and control groups: Trail making test, verbal working memory: N-back test, Rey's auditory verbal learning test. Parametric and nonparametric test were used to analyze the data based on the criterion. Results: There was no significant difference between STA and LTA groups in mean time taken to complete the task in Trail A and Trail B (t = 1.16, p = 0.25 and t = 0.72, p = 0.48). There is no significant difference between two groups in working memory functions in verbal 2-back and 1-back errors or hits. There is a significant difference between long-term and short-term alcohol abstinent groups in immediate recall (t = −2.189, p = 0.03). There is no significant difference between two groups in other trials of learning and memory tasks. Conclusion: The result of this study shows that there is no significant difference between short-term and long-term abstinent groups in attention, working memory task, verbal learning, and memory task. Longer duration of abstinence is required for the improvement in neuropsychological deficits due to alcohol use.


HTML PDF Share
PDF Share
PDF Share

© Jaypee Brothers Medical Publishers (P) LTD.