Psychiatria pre prax 5–6/2010

Cognitive performance in depression

Number of patients sufferring from unipolar depression have problems with impairment of cognitive and executive functions which we marked as cognitive deficit. This deficit has a big influence on their quality of life, every day lifestyle, etc. Many different factors involve in formation of cognitive deficit like influence of longitudinal stress, imbalance of neurotransmitters, etc. Impairment of cognitive functions in depression has global diffused character, it does not has a specific profile and its course is influenced by many clinical factors (subtypes and severity of depression, medication, hospitalization…). Cognitive impairment is present in depression probably already before presence of symptomatology and also in remission of depression. We found different structural and functional brain abnormities in patients suffering from depression (especially hippocampus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex). During diagnostic process we should use short, unpretentious and adequate neuropsychological tests. Actually we have not rehabilitation procedures directly for patients with depression, so we use well tried methods from another disorders.

Keywords: depression, cognitive deficit, cognitive functions, neuropsychology.