Brain damage and neuropsyochological impairment in female and male alcoholics and implications for their offspring

Abstract

Matched pairs of 40 male and 40 female alcoholic inpatients living in Stockholm were examined and found to fulfill the alcoholism criteria of DSM‐III‐R. They comprised 40 matched pairs of men and women consecutively admitted to the Karolinska Alcohol Clinic and staying at least one week for treatment. The examination included a general medical examination, a psychiatric and social history, blood tests, ECG, computed tomography of the brain and neuropsychological testing. The subjects’ and their families’ possibilities of creating a good upbringing environment and their own and their children's childhood were studied.

The alcoholics and their offspring were followed from the registers of the child welfare committees, temperance boards, social service departments, the Social Insurance Office and the Medical Information System of the Medical Services Board of Stockholm County Council.

The children of the female alcoholics had, during their childhood, more often had contact with an educational welfare officer, a psychologist or a physician for various problems and also had a significantly higher rate of registration in the children's welfare committee registers than children of male alcoholics. The male alcoholics more often came from broken homes. 29% of the female and 32% of the male alcoholics had been fostered by their biological mother alone or by grandparents until 16 years of age. 51% of the women and 39% of the men had an alcohol‐abusing mother and father during childhood. Signs of social maladjustment and having been under the care of a child welfare committee were recorded in 32% and 24% respectively of the male alcoholics and 20% and 12% of the females.

62% of the male alcoholics and 30% of the females showed cortical atrophy. Signs of neuropsychological impairment were present in 35% of the females but only 16% of the males.

It is concluded that female and male alcoholics resemble each other and that they both have a disturbed childhood and that female alcoholics more often have an alcohol and drug‐abusing parent, nervous problems in the parents, attempted suicide by a parent and serious schisms in the family than male alcoholics.

Key Word:

• Children of female and male alcoholics
• psychosocial problems
• childhood
• social maladjustment