1. Cognitive Deficits and Related Brain Lesions in Patients With Chronic Heart Failure
- Author
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Laszlo Solymosi, Peter Kraft, Guido Stoll, Ignaz Gunreben, Peter U. Heuschmann, Stefan Störk, Eric Schmid, Caroline Morbach, György A. Homola, Carolin Malsch, Reinhold Schmidt, Anna Frey, Balint Alkonyi, Georg Ertl, Wolfgang Müllges, Roxane Sell, Edith Hofer, and Isabella Colonna
- Subjects
Male ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Intelligence ,Diastole ,030204 cardiovascular system & hematology ,Neuropsychological Tests ,Vocabulary ,Cohort Studies ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Internal medicine ,Reaction Time ,Medicine ,Humans ,In patient ,Cognitive Dysfunction ,Aged ,Brain Diseases ,Heart Failure, Diastolic ,Ejection fraction ,business.industry ,Cognition ,Middle Aged ,medicine.disease ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Memory, Short-Term ,Stroke prevention ,Heart failure ,Case-Control Studies ,Chronic Disease ,Cardiology ,Brain lesions ,Female ,Verbal memory ,Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine ,business ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Heart Failure, Systolic - Abstract
This study sought to determine the spectrum of brain lesions seen in heart failure (HF) patients and the extent to which lesion type contributes to cognitive impairment.Cognitive deficits have been reported in patients with HF.A total of 148 systolic and diastolic HF patients (mean age 64 ± 11 years; 16% female; mean left ventricular ejection fraction 43 ± 8%) were extensively evaluated within 2 days by cardiological, neurological, and neuropsychological testing and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A total of 288 healthy, sex- and age-matched subjects sampled from the Austrian Stroke Prevention Study served as MRI controls.Deficits in reaction times were apparent in 41% of patients and deficits in verbal memory in 46%. On brain MRI, patients showed more advanced medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) (Scheltens score) compared to controls (2.1 ± 0.9 vs. 1.0 ± 0.6; p 0.001). The degree of MTA was strongly associated with the severity of cognitive impairment, whereas the extent of white matter hyperintensities was similar in patients and controls. Moreover, patients had a 2.7-fold increased risk for presence of clinically silent lacunes.HF patients exhibit cognitive deficits in the domains of attention and memory. MTA but not white matter lesion load seems to be related to cognitive impairment.
- Published
- 2017