Objective: To assess prevalence of anxiety and depression in patients with CD and investigate cognitive changes including social cognition and executive function.

Background: Cervical dystonia, and other adult-onset idiopathic focal dystonias, have a spectrum of motor and non-motor features. Non-motor features include sensory, mood  (anxiety and depression) and cognitive  dysfunction. Patients with cervical dystonia have been shown to have unique deficits in cognition and, specifically, social cognition. The pathophysiology of this disorder remains unknown. Analysing changes in cognition in cervical dystonia may have elucide disease pathophysiology.

Method: 36 participants with CD were recruited. Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and selected subtests from Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) was administered to patients with adult-onset idiopathic cervical dystonia undergoing botulinum toxin treatment. Performance of patients with CD were compared to normal data and relationships between mood, social cognition and other cognitive domains were investigated.

Results: Using validated cut-off scores on the HADS-Anxiety and HADS-Depression, 19 participants (52% overall) fulfilled the criteria for anxiety and 11 for depression (30%). Participants with CD performed significantly worse on all cognitive domains under investigation when compared to the normative data. There were significant correlations between anxiety and depression, executive functioning and attention, and social and emotional cognition.

Conclusion: Anxiety and depression and impairments in cognitive and social cognitive domains are relevant aspects of cervical dystonia. Clinicians should consider these changes as they may be relevant to quality of life in this disorder. Further research may help highlight disease mechanisms.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/cognitive-dysfunction-in-cervical-dystonia/