A short neuropsychological evaluation of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome.

OBJECTIVE To investigate cognitive deficits in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (PSS). METHOD Eighteen patients with PSS, aged between 25 and 61 years, were subjected to a short neuropsychological battery and compared with 18 patients with multiple sclerosis and 18 healthy controls. RESULTS The analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the clinical groups had significantly worse performance than the control group on the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test 3; (F(2,53) =3.500, p=0.038) and 7 (F(2,53) =5.068, p=0.010). The clinical groups had elevated levels of depression on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI); (p=0.003). The analysis of the data from the Trail Making Test B-A revealed a significant difference between the clinical and control groups (p=0.023). The analysis of covariance with BDI score as a covariate, did not change the outcome. CONCLUSION Our study revealed cognitive deficits in patients with PSS detectable by a short neuropsychological battery.