5 research outputs found
Impaired Upper Limb Coordination in Alcoholic Cerebellar Degeneration
BACKGROUND: Alcoholic cerebellar degeneration (ACD) is a disorder resulting from severe chronic alcoholism and malnutrition and is characterized by cognitive disturbances, ataxia of gait, and truncal instability, with generally preserved coordination of the upper extremities. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether cognitive deficits in patients with ACD are the same as those seen in patients with severe chronic alcoholism without ACD and to determine whether upper limb motor coordination is different in the 2 groups. DESIGN: We examined cognitive function and upper limb coordination in 56 patients with severe chronic alcoholism, 13 with ACD and 43 without ACD, who had comparable levels of total alcohol intake. Neuropsychological and motor function was measured using an expanded Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery, including the Tactual Performance Test and Grooved Pegboard Test. RESULTS: Neither group had impaired coordination of upper limb function on clinical neurological examination. Both groups had impaired performance on neuropsychological tests involving executive function, but the patients with ACD had greater impairment of upper limb coordination than the patients without ACD as measured by the Tactual Performance Test and Grooved Pegboard Test. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that these 2 groups have similar cognitive deficits but that upper extremity motor functions are more significantly impaired in the ACD group and that quantitative tasks of motor function reveal these impairments
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Effects of abstinence and relapse upon neuropsychological function and cerebral glucose metabolism in severe chronic alcoholism
Prolonged excessive consumption of alcohol has been associated with a variety of cognitive disorders accompanied by neuropathological and neurochemical abnormalities of the brain, particularly in the frontal lobes. Studies with positron emission tomography (PET) have shown decreased local cerebral metabolic rates for glucose (ICMRglc) in frontal regions, with correlated abnormalities on neuropsychological tests sensitive to executive functioning. This investigation was designed as a pilot study to examine the effects of abstinence and relapse in patients with severe chronic alcoholism studied longitudinally with PET and with neuropsychological evaluation to assess both general and executive functioning. Six patients, including 4 who remained relatively abstinent and 2 who relapsed following their initial evaluation, were studied twice, with inter-evaluation intervals ranging from 10 to 32 months. The patients who remained abstinent or who had minimal alcohol use showed partial recovery of ICMRglc in two of three divisions of the frontal lobes and improvement on neuropsychological tests of general cognitive and executive functioning, whereas the patients who relapsed had further declines in these areas. These results, although based upon a relatively small number of subjects, provide preliminary support for at least partial recovery of metabolic and cognitive functioning in individual patients who abstain from alcohol
Effects of Disulfiram on Positron Emission Tomography and Neuropsychological Studies in Severe Chronic Alcoholism
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/65363/1/j.1530-0277.1996.tb01149.x.pd