Objective: To investigate the cognitive performance and the neuropsychiatric profile of patients with idiopathic adult-onset cervical dystonia (CD), to determine the occurrence of neuropsychiatric abnormalities and their influence on cognitive performance and to confront the frequency of cognitive disorders in the studied sample with data from the current literature.

Background: The understanding that dystonia is a condition that involves not only motor symptoms, but also non-motor elements is a relatively recent information. Several authors have reported that patients with isolated dystonia have cognitive abnormalities, although the reports have been somewhat inconsistent and some conflicting findings.

Method: This is a cross-sectional study, paired with a control group, performed on consecutive outpatient visits at the Movement Disorders Clinic of the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Thirty individuals were evaluated, including 15 patients with CD and 15 individuals paired with each member of the case group considering sex, age, and years of schooling. Clinical assessments followed a pre-established and fixed order (Mini Mental State Examination, Clock Drawing Test, Semantic and Phological Verbal Fluency, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, Rey-Osterreich Complex Figure Test, Berg Card Sorting Test-64 and Cambridge Behavioural Inventory Revised) that involved the testing of global cognition, executive functions, verbal and non-verbal memory, visuospatial and visuoconstructive skills, verbal fluency and neuropsychiatric symptoms.

Results: Regarding the assessment of cognitive skills, no significant differences were identified between the two groups for most variables, except for Phonological Verbal Fluency (F-A-S), in which there were significantly lower results in the case group (p 0.001). There was a significant positive correlation between disease duration and total errors and non-perseverative errors in BCST-64.

Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that individuals with isolated idiopathic adult-onset CD have cognitive impairment confined to verbal fluency when compared to healthy controls. As for neuropsychiatric symptoms, especially anxiety and depression, dystonic patients did not differ from controls. Additional research using larger samples and more sensitive neuropsychological tools, preferably accompanied by functional neuroimaging, are vital.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/the-cognitive-features-of-idiopathic-cervical-dystonia-a-cross-sectional-study/