Neuropsychological sequelae of hard metal disease

To evaluate the memory complaints of a group of patients with hard metal disease, 12 adult, former tungsten carbide workers with hard metal disease and 26 healthy, unexposed control subjects matched for age, race, sex, occupational status and education were administered the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R), the Peterson Word Triad Test, Squire's Current Events Test (including both the recall and recognition forms), and Squire's Television Title Recognition Test. The exposed group demonstrated deficits in short-term verbal memory, allocation of central processing resources, and remote verbal memory compared to the control group. Visual memory was spared. Comparisons were made to previous investigations of memory functioning within the toxicology literature.