A short neuropsychological evaluation of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome

OBJECTIVE: To investigate cognitive deficits in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (PSS). METHOD: Eighteen patients with PSS, aged between 25 and 61 years, were subjected to a short neuropsychological battery and compared with 18 patients with multiple sclerosis and 18 healthy controls. RESULTS: The analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the clinical groups had significantly worse performance than the control group on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test 3; (F(2,53) =3.500, p=0.038) and 7 (F(2,53) =5.068, p=0.010). The clinical groups had elevated levels of depression on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); (p=0.003). The analysis of the data from the Trail Making Test B-A revealed a significant difference between the clinical and control groups (p=0.023). The analysis of covariance with BDI score as a covariate, did not change the outcome. CONCLUSION: Our study revealed cognitive deficits in patients with PSS detectable by a short neuropsychological battery.