Neuropsychological functioning among heart transplant candidates: a case control study

Neuropsychological performance was examined among a group of patients with end-stage heart disease undergoing routine evaluation for transplantation using a matched case-control design. Heart transplant candidates and controls were matched case by case for gender, race, education and age range. In order to match all 44 controls, a clinical series of 303 heart transplant candidates evaluated between October 1995 through March 1998 were considered. Although not specifically matched on variables of estimated IQ and socioeconomic status, statistical analysis showed no group differences on these variables. A separate analysis of variance on each neuropsychological test indicated that the heart transplant candidates performed significantly worse than controls on tasks of fine motor speed and dexterity (i.e., Grooved Peg Board), psychomotor speed and mental flexibility (i.e., Trail Making Test, Part B), and abstract reasoning and problem solving ability (i.e., Shipley Institute of Living Scale-Abstraction subtest). Implications of the results and future directions are discussed.