Spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD): cognitive disturbances

The performance of 30 patients younger than 65 years with spinocerebellar degeneration (SCD) was compared with control subjects matched for age, sex, and education in standardized neuropsychological tests. SCD patients exhibited abnormalities in WAIS, in the recall test of anterograde verbal memory, in verbal fluency, in visuospatial function and on the depression scale. However, they exhibited no deficit in the recognition test of anterograde verbal memory. No patients showed impaired visual confrontation naming. The pattern of neuropsychological deficits exhibited by the SCD patients closely approximated the profile observed in other types of subcortical dementia. There were no significant differences between the SCD patients with pontine atrophy and those without pontine atrophy in any of the neuropsychological examinations.