A detailed profile of cognitive dysfunction and its relation to psychological distress in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) is a common metabolic disorder. DM2 is associated with cognitive impairments, and with depressive symptoms, which occur in about one third of patients. In the current study we compared the cognitive profile and psychological well-being of 119 patients with DM2 (mean age: 66 +/- 6; mean duration: 9 +/- 6 years) with 55 age and education matched-control participants. Groups were compared on cognitive performance in five major cognitive domains, psychological wellbeing [assessed by Symptom Checklist (SCL)-90-R and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II)] and abnormalities on brain MRI. We hypothesized an interrelationship between cognition, MRI abnormalities, and psychological well-being. DM2 patients performed significantly worse than controls on cognitive tasks, especially on tasks that required more mental efficiency, although the differences were modest (effect sizes Cohen d < .6). We speculate that DM2 patients have a diminished ability to efficiently process unstructured information. Patients with DM2 had significantly higher scores on the SCL-90-R (p < .001) and on the BDI-II (p < .001) and worse MRI ratings than controls, but psychological distress did not correlate with cognition, MRI ratings or biomedical characteristics. Contrary to our hypothesis, cognitive disturbances and psychological distress thus seem independent symptoms of the same disease.

Caffeine, Diabetes, Cognition, and Dementia

“…In individuals with screeningdetected T2DM of 2 years [34] or 5-10 years [32] duration effect sizes were ∼0.2 and ∼0.3, respectively. In individuals with 10 years duration of T2DM, diagnosed in regular care, effect sizes were ∼0.3 [33]. Moreover, when we applied the same testing protocol to individuals with the metabolic syndrome without T2DM, effect sizes relative to controls were ∼0.…”

“…Over the past years our research group has applied the same standardized detailed psychometric evaluation in a number of cohorts of patients with T2DM (∼400 in total) [32][33][34]. Each cohort included non-diabetic controls, and possible confounding effects of age, sex, education, and pre-morbid IQ were carefully taken into account.…”

Albuminuria and Cognitive Functioning in an Older Population: The Hoorn Study

“…At the 2005–2008 examination, all participants performed an extensive neuropsychological examination including 12 verbal and non-verbal tasks, administered in a fixed order that took 90 min to complete [16]. The tasks were divided into 6 cognitive domains to reduce the amount of neuropsychological variables and for clinical clarity.…”

Cognitive Functioning in Elderly Persons with Type 2 Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome: the Hoorn Study

“…All participants performed an extensive neuropsychological examination including twelve verbal and nonverbal tasks, administered in a fixed order that took 90 min to complete [20] . The tasks were divided into six cognitive domains to reduce the amount of neuropsychological variables and for clinical clarity.…”