Computerized assessment of cognitive impairment in narcoleptic patients

OBJECTIVES - This study was aimed to investigate the comprehensive range of cognitive performance using the objective computerized assessment system in narcolepsy and age, gender, and IQ-matched healthy comparison. MATERIALS AND METHODS - The cognitive functions of 24 patients with narcolepsy and 24 healthy comparison subjects were assessed. RESULTS - Narcoleptics performed more frequent omission and commission errors in the vigilance test, and more frequent omission errors in the continuous performance test. Narcoleptics' response time was slower than healthy volunteers, and the differences were more exaggerated in more complex tasks. The simple repetitious working performance was more impaired in the narcoleptic subjects than in healthy comparison subjects. Narcolepsy group showed worse performances in the determination unit than the comparison group, and this impairment became more salient in faster stimuli relative to slower ones. CONCLUSIONS - Narcoleptics have deficits of efficiency in attention allocation and execution as well as simple vigilance problem.