Neuropsychology of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Pilot Study

Everly, George S.; Horton, Arthur MacNeill

doi:10.2466/pms.1989.68.3.807

Cited by 47 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Although short-term memory impairment may occur in some individuals with PTSD (Everly and Horton, 1989), reexperiencing phenomena suggest that trauma may enhance memory for aversive events. Freud (1895) and Janet (van der Kolk, 1989), first to recognize that traumatic memories were distinct from ordinary memories, were followed by later theorists (Foa et al, (1989).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Malignant memories: Post‐traumatic changes in memory in adults after a school shooting

Schwarz

Kowalski

McNally

1993

Journal of Traumatic Stress

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Malignant memories: Post‐traumatic changes in memory in adults after a school shooting

Schwarz

Kowalski

McNally

1993

Journal of Traumatic Stress

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“…However, most of these studies included PTSD patients with significant psychiatric co-morbidity, so that the extent to which the observed deficits are specifically attributable to PTSD remains unclear. In studies of veterans diagnosed with PTSD, only mild to moderate neuropsychological deficits have been reported and several have not shown indications of higher cognitive impairments [Dalton et al, 1989;Everly and Horton, 1989;Gurvits et al, 1993], but other studies dealing specifically with combat-related PTSD have shown fairly specific deficits in the monitoring and regulation of memory information [Yehuda et al, 1995], as well as deficits in short term [Bremner et al, 1993] and long-term memory [Gilbertson et al, 1997[Gilbertson et al, , 2001Vasterling et al, 1998Vasterling et al, , 2002Yehuda et al, 2005]. Part of the discrepancies in these findings may be due to the use of different comparison groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning and memory impairment in PTSD: relationship to depression

et al. 2008

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Memory function was studied in combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), combat veterans without PTSD, and noncombat veterans. The Vocabulary and Digit Span subtests of the WAIS and Logical Memory (LMS) and Verbal Paired Associates (VPAS) subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale III were administered. Combat veterans with PTSD showed impaired memory on the LMS and VPAS compared to combat veterans without PTSD or noncombat veterans. Veterans with PTSD also showed lower WAIS Vocabulary subtest scores--but not digit span subtest scores--than combat veterans without PTSD or noncombat veterans. Medication status, co-morbid diagnosis, and age all failed to account for these memory differences, but when self-assessed depression--as measured by the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale--or anxiety--as measured by the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Scale--was statistically removed, group differences on these memory measures were no longer significant. However, using a stepwise regression procedure, in which both anxiety and depression were employed to predict the LMS and VPAS scores, only the Zung scale reliably predicated performance. The present results, showing that PTSD is associated with general learning and memory impairments, is an important finding, but the specific effects of depression as a mediator of these deficits should be further studied.

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“…PTSD patients report deficits in declarative memory (remembering facts or lists, as reviewed below), fragmentation of memories (both autobiographical and trauma-related) and dissociative amnesia (gaps in memory that can occur for minutes to days and are not due to ordinary forgetting). On the basis of clinical reports and the tentative results of Everly and Horton (1989), Gil, Calev, Greenberg, Kugelmass, and Lerer (1990) hypothesised that there are memory deficits in PTSD patients. In their study, PTSD patients were male combat veterans and victims of terrorism or vehicle accidents who had abused alcohol or other substances, yet had been drugfree for at least two weeks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Learning Problems, Impaired Short-Term Memory, and General Intelligence in Relation to Severity and Duration of Disease in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Patients

Emdad

Söndergaard²,

Theorell

2005

Stress, Trauma, and Crisis

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There are scarcely published studies that have addressed the relationship between posttraumatic period, and severity of PTSD in relation to the short-term memory and the general intelligence. The first hypothesis was that the longer the posttrauma period, the lower the short-term memory and general intelligence scores; and the more severe the disease, the lower the scores in these tests. The second hypothesis was that impaired short-term memory would predict difficulties with reading and writing in the PTSD group, and would reveal differences between the PTSD group and the control group with regard to learning difficulties. Thirty males with PTSD, and 20 males without PTSD participated in the study. Both groups were Arab and Kurdish refugees from Iraq who had recently settled in Sweden. The nonverbal short-term memory and intelligence tests were administered. Clinician-assessed interview for PTSD (CAPS), the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ), and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) were 25 applied. The following partial correlations were found in the PTSD group (n ¼ 30) between duration of PTSD and (a) Block Design Test (r ¼ À0:42; p ¼ 0:04); and (b) Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT; number of rotation errors: r ¼ 0:42; p ¼ 0:04; number of distortion errors: r ¼ 0:41; p ¼ 0:05); and between Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM), and Severity of PTSD (r ¼ À0:42; p ¼ 0:04). RSPM predicted Severity of PTSD. BVRT predicted Difficulties with Reading and Writing in the PTSD group. The results of the present study show that PTSD patients have learning difficulties and cognitive problems in proportion to the duration and severity of perceived life events and trauma.

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Neuropsychology of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Pilot Study

Cited by 47 publications

References 4 publications

Malignant memories: Post‐traumatic changes in memory in adults after a school shooting

Malignant memories: Post‐traumatic changes in memory in adults after a school shooting

Learning and memory impairment in PTSD: relationship to depression

Learning Problems, Impaired Short-Term Memory, and General Intelligence in Relation to Severity and Duration of Disease in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Patients

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