Cognitive profile in functional disorders

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

Patients with functional disorders (FD) often experience cognitive problems such as forgetfulness and distractibility alongside physical symptoms that cannot be attributed to a known somatic disease.

Method:

Test scores of cognitive tests and psychiatric rating scales of 100 outpatients diagnosed with a functional disorder were compared to a control group (n = 300) of patients with other diagnoses and to test norms for the general population.

Results:

Out of the 100 patients with functional disorders, 59 reported significant subjective cognitive symptoms. A moderate difference (d = 0.5-0.7) was found between the FD group mean and the population mean in processing speed tests, as well as in four psychiatric rating scales (depression, anxiety, phobias, somatisation) but there were no statistically significant differences in verbal and nonverbal reasoning or in logical memory. Somatisation and logical verbal memory scores were higher in the FD group compared to the control group.

Conclusion:

The findings of the study suggest that a decline in processing speed is a central feature in the cognitive profile of patients with functional disorders.

KEYWORDS:

• Functional disorder
• cognition
• cognitive profile
• somatisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The primary data of the study is available at HUS acamedic secure operating environment upon registration in the service.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Signe ja Ane Gyllenbergin Säätiö: [Grant Number 5662].