Cognitive function and affective symptoms during the acute phase and three months following an ischemic stroke

Abstract

After an ictus, decline of cognitive function, mood and behaviour have been described. Our aim is to correlate the volume of the lesion (in sequences DRM and FLAIR) with the raw scores of cognitive and affective tests. Patients (N = 24) with vascular subcortical cerebral lesions were studied, and cognitive and affective behaviour tests were administered twice. The results show a negative correlation be-tween the volume of the lesion in the DRM sequence and the verbal phonetic fluency (r = -0,42) and naming scores (r = -0,64). A negative correlation is also observed with the Naming Boston Test (r = -0,50) in the FLAIR sequence. Correlations between the volume of the lesion in the left hemisphere and the Trail Making Test part B and the naming test, were statistically significant. With relationship to the second evaluation carried out after three months, a certain improvement of the raw scores of the tests was observed.