Ethnic differences in drinking practices and cognitive impairment among detoxifying alcoholics

The purpose of the present study was to determine whether ethnic differences existed among detoxifying alcoholic inpatients regarding drinking practices, psychosocial variables and cognitive impairment. Patients of Puerto Rican extraction (Hispanics) were found to be more often afflicted than Whites and Blacks by cognitive impairment, daily drinking, heaviest average amount drunk, unemployment and lack of residence. Whites were less affected by these variables than the other two ethnic groups. Amount and frequency of drinking predicted the occurrence of cognitive impairment to a degree that approached significance. Cognitive impairment was defined as inability to score less than 5 points in the Blessed Orientation-Memory-Concentration test. In a follow-up study, nearly all CT scans obtained on a similar group of 20 detoxifying alcoholics (mean age 40), who had cognitive impairment as defined in the first study, were found to demonstrate brain atrophy. Contrasting drinking practices rather than ethnicity may have accounted for the different rates of cognitive impairment observed among the three ethnic groups.