Do cardiovascular disease comorbidities affect the cognitive function of Multiple Sclerosis patients?

Vasileios Giannopapas; Konstantina Stavrogianni; Niki Christouli; Dimitrios Kitsos; Eleni Sideri; Daphne Bakalidou; Konstantinos Voumvourakis; Georgia Papagiannopoulou; John Tzartos; Georgios Paraskevas; Georgios Tsivgoulis; Sotirios Giannopoulos

doi:10.1016/j.jocn.2023.04.005

Do cardiovascular disease comorbidities affect the cognitive function of Multiple Sclerosis patients?

J Clin Neurosci. 2023 Jun:112:20-24. doi: 10.1016/j.jocn.2023.04.005. Epub 2023 Apr 7.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurology, Attikon University Hospital Greece, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece; Department of Physical Therapy, University of West Attica, Greece; Laboratory of Neuromuscular and Cardiovascular Study of Motion-LANECASM, University of West Attica, Greece.
² Department of Neurology, Attikon University Hospital Greece, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
³ Department of Physical Therapy, University of West Attica, Greece; Laboratory of Neuromuscular and Cardiovascular Study of Motion-LANECASM, University of West Attica, Greece.
⁴ Department of Neurology, Attikon University Hospital Greece, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. Electronic address: sgiannop@uoi.gr.

PMID: 37031630
DOI: 10.1016/j.jocn.2023.04.005

Abstract

Introduction: Cognitive impairment is a core symptom of multiple sclerosis, leading to disability in 40-70% of patients. The most common cognitive domains affected by MS are information processing speed, complex attention, executive functions and less frequently, episodic declarative memory. Cardiovascular disease comorbidities have been shown to increase the decline rate in many neurological conditions. Our study aims to examine the possible impact of CVD risk factors in the cognitive decline rate of PwMS.

Methods: Over the course of a year, 248 PwMS with and without Cardiovascular comorbidity were cognitively evaluated using the written version of SDMT and the MoCA.

Results: Compared to control, MS patients with comorbid CVD had greater general cognitive decline and decreased processing speed. Patients with comorbid diabetes and dyslipidemia had the highest impairment, followed by those with hypertension, compared to the control group and those patients with a high BMI.

Conclusion: The presence of cardiovascular comorbidities and especially dyslipidemia increases the rate of cognitive decline in MS patients. In such cases, patients should be evaluated every 6 months instead of a year and the use of the SDMT is advised since it's time efficient,it requires minimal training and correlates with MRI findings.

Keywords: Cardiovascular diseases; Cognitive function; Multiple sclerosis.

MeSH terms

Cardiovascular Diseases* / complications
Cardiovascular Diseases* / epidemiology
Cognition
Cognitive Dysfunction* / diagnosis
Cognitive Dysfunction* / epidemiology
Cognitive Dysfunction* / etiology
Comorbidity
Humans
Multiple Sclerosis* / complications
Multiple Sclerosis* / epidemiology
Neuropsychological Tests