Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 54, Issue 2 P94-P99, Copyright © 1999 by The Gerontological Society of America
A preliminary study of the association between changes in mood and cognition in a mixed geriatric psychiatry sample
RH Benedict, M Dobraski and MZ Goldstein
Department of Neurology, State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo, USA. [email protected]
The relationship between measures of mood state and cognitive function was
investigated in a sample of geriatric psychiatry inpatients. All were
admitted to an urban hospital with varying degrees of cognitive impairment.
Patients with diminishing negative affects and depressive symptoms during
the course of hospitalization improved significantly on three cognitive
tests, and half of the group members were no longer impaired according to
their performance on a mental status exam. Correlations between cognition
and mood-scale change scores were significant on tests emphasizing spatial
processing and learning. Although the effects were modest in this
heterogenous sample, the data demonstrate a significant influence of
changing mood state on neuropsychological test performance.
