A prospective study of amelioration of cognitive functions following alcohol abstinence in patients with alcohol dependence syndrome

Abstract

Abstract Background: Increased intake of alcohol causes changes in the cognitive process, affecting many important functions such as execution, recent memory, and visuospatial abilities. Sometimes changes imparted by alcohol use are irreversible. Aims and Objectives: The impairments caused by alcohol abuse are usually underdiagnosed even though they are moderate to severe. To this purpose, we studied the cognitive improvement on abstinence of alcohol use. Materials and Methods: The present study was done in 100 patients, whose diagnosis was made as per the International Classification of Disorders-10 as alcohol dependence syndrome. Patients were administered with the scales, the Severity of Alcohol Dependence Questionnaire (SAD-Q), Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Postgraduate Inventory Battery of Brain Dysfunction (PGIBBD), Trail Making Test-B, Digit Span Test, and Digit Vigilance Test. The evaluation of patients was done after 2 weeks of the last alcohol intake and reassessed at the end of the 3rd and 6th months, scores were compared. Analysis of data was done by using mean and standard deviation for continuous variables. The categorical variables were presented as frequency and percentages, and the comparisons between the quantitative data were done by analysis of variance test. Results: The cognitive assessment revealed impairments in executive function, short-term verbal memory, recent memory, visuospatial abilities, visual recognition, and processing speed on initial evaluation, and all the values improved in 6 months of abstinence. Conclusions: In this study, we found, there was significant impairment in memory, executive function, processing speed, visuospatial and recognition skills, initially, and improvement in cognitive function in alcohol.