The neuropsychological consequences of abstinence among older alcoholics: A cross-sectional study
The neuropsychological consequences of abstinence among older alcoholics: A cross-sectional study
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DOI：
10.1097/00000374-200010000-00008
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发表时间：
2000-10-01
影响因子：
3.2
通讯作者：
Butters, MA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Munro, CA;Saxton, J;Butters, MA
背景：在酒精的急性影响和戒酒后功能恢复方面，老年酗酒者与年轻酗酒者有所不同。然而，很少有研究只包括年龄较大的受试者的样本。在这项研究中，我们检查了年龄在55-83岁的老年戒酒者的功能恢复情况，以确定戒酒后哪些神经心理功能得到改善，哪些仍然受损。方法：我们使用横断面设计，在一系列神经心理测试中比较三组人口统计学匹配的组：(A)戒酒超过6个月的老年酗酒者，(B)戒酒少于6个月的老年酗酒者，以及(C)没有酗酒史的对照组。结果：在几乎所有的任务中，戒酒少于6个月的酗酒者的表现都比对照组差。相反，戒酒6个月以上的酗酒者在词汇表的学习和回忆、复杂数字的即刻和延迟回忆、初始字母流利性和罐子画等方面与对照组不同。结论：随着戒酒时间的延长，老年人的记忆和执行技能似乎难以恢复，或者至少恢复得较慢。先前对酗酒者的研究报告的视觉空间技能受损可能与执行功能受损有关，这干扰了更复杂的视觉空间信息的编码，从而影响了对此类信息的回忆。需要对老年酗酒者进行更大样本的研究，以了解他们在戒酒后恢复认知功能的能力。
Background: The older alcoholic has been distinguished from the younger alcoholic with regard to both the acute effects of alcohol and also the recovery of functioning with abstinence. Few studies, however, have included samples of exclusively older subjects. in this investigation we examined the recovery of functioning in an older cohort of recovering alcoholics (age range 55-83) to determine which neuropsychological functions improve and which remain impaired with abstinence.Methods: We used a cross-sectional design, comparing three demographically matched groups on a battery of neuropsychological tests: (a) older alcoholics who had been abstinent for greater than 6 months, (b) older alcoholics who had been abstinent for less than 6 months, and (c) a control group of older subjects without alcohol abuse histories.Results: In almost all tasks, the alcoholics who were abstinent for less than 6 months performed worse than the control group. rn contrast, the alcoholics who had been abstinent for more than 6 months differed from the control group on learning and recall of a word list, immediate and delayed recall of a complex figure, initial letter fluency, and crock drawing.Conclusions: Memory and executive skills appear to be resistant to recovery or at least slower to recover with abstinence in the older alcoholic. The impairment with visuospatial skills reported in prior investigations of alcoholics may be related to compromised executive functions, which interfere with the encoding of more complex visuospatial information and thus affect recall of such information. Studies that involve larger samples of older alcoholics are needed to understand their ability to recover cognitive functioning with abstinence.