Cognitive impairment after accidental high-dose corticosteroid therapy

Der Nervenarzt
M ArndtC Norra

Abstract

Synthetic glucocorticosteroids can induce various severe mental disorders. Persisting cognitive disorder represents a rare complication of corticoid therapy involving memory, concentration, attention, or occupational performance. We observed the effects of a 20-day self-induced high-dose corticosteroid treatment on the cognitive functions in a 54-year-old patient. Having excluded dementia due to other organic causes, we examined the patient neuropsychologically immediately at the end of the steroid therapy and at follow-up (1, 2, 4, and 6 months). The initial tests showed seriously impaired functioning of concentration, attention, learning, and memory as well as of common ability to solve problems. The follow-up tests up to 6 months revealed an improvement of concentration and attention, but there were still serious deficits of the declarative memory with a high confabulating tendency. Our results confirm those of human experimental studies that exogenous steroids can cause serious persisting specific cognitive disorders especially of the declarative, hippocampus-dependent memory.

Citations

Nov 12, 2005·Der Nervenarzt·I Uttner, H Tumani
Jun 27, 2006·British Journal of Sports Medicine·J DvorakK Grimm
May 16, 2007·Journal of Neurology·Hayrettin Tumani, Ingo Uttner
May 29, 2020·Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews·Carey E Lyons, Alessandro Bartolomucci

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is characterized by manic and/or depressive episodes and associated with uncommon shifts in mood, activity levels, and energy. Discover the latest research this illness here.

Related Papers

Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology
Alicia OsimaniJacob M Abarbanel
Psychiatria Hungarica : A Magyar Pszichiátriai Társaság tudományos folyóirata
Patrícia PolgárSzabolcs Kéri
© 2021 Meta ULC. All rights reserved