Psychopathological changes and cognitive impairment in encephalomyelitis disseminata

Two hundred and twelve patients with clinically evidenced encephalomyelitis disseminata (ED), hospitalized in a neurological hospital, were observed with regard to psychopathological characteristics and cognitive changes in conformity with ICD-10 diagnostic criteria. The basis of this investigation was a standardized psychiatric interview. The age of the patients averaged 47 years whereas the duration of the disease averaged 14.3 years. 83.5% of the patients had a disease history of more than 6 years. The medium range of EDSS scores was 5.95%, the BPRS 36.7%. In 5.2% of the patients the course of ED was primarily chronic-progressive while 48% suffered from the intermittent, incomplete-reversible form: 47.6% developed secondary chronic-progressive symptoms. 18 psychopathological symptoms could be identified, the main symptom was depressive mood (49%), followed by impairment of affective sensitivity (34.9%) and affective instability/incontinence (31.1%). The most prevalent diagnoses were dementia (23.1%), organic personality disorder (18.5%), mild cognitive impairment (9%), and depressive disorder (7.6%) Only 33.5% were psychopathologically unaffected. The duration of the disease in all demented patients exceeded 6 years. Patients with an organic personality disorder showed a marked increase in the later stages of their illness in contrast to patients suffering from depressive disorder. At the beginning of ED, a highly significant (p < 0.0001) impairment of vision was found in all psychiatric patients. Dementia patients and organic personality patients, on the other hand, showed an advanced degree of ataxia. Actually, there was a considerably lesser incidence of pareses in the non-psychopathological group whereas ataxia was significantly more prevalent in the three cognitively impaired ED-subgroups than in the control group. These findings set the stage for constructive discussions, taking due consideration of existing research results on ED with particular reference to the implications regarding future research as well as the clinical therapy of patients.