Attention disturbance in Graves' disease

Twenty-seven patients with untreated Graves' disease were studied in order to determine alterations of concentration/attention and their possible association with levels of T4, T3RU, free thyroxin index (FTI), and anxiety. The patients obtained significantly lower values (p less than 0.01) throughout the whole application period of the concentration/attention test in comparison with control healthy group. Multiple regression equations relating the attention indexes with levels of T4 and T3RU, FTI and anxiety in the patients were determined, and no significant relationships were found. Similarly, a non-linear regression equation relating attention index and FTI gave a non-significant result. Possible mechanisms that could explain the deficiency in concentration/attention in ths disease are discussed.