Introduction And Aims: Repeatedly undergoing supervised, medical, detoxification from chronic alcohol use may contribute to impairments in neurocognitive functioning of patients with an alcohol use disorder (AUD). Unsupervised, non-medical, detoxification, however, may also contribute to neurocognitive impairments, given the absence of first choice prescription medication to counteract severe withdrawal effects. So far, findings from previous studies are inconclusive and specifically effects of non-medical detoxifications are not investigated yet.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Studies have reported inconsistent results regarding the extent to which neurocognitive recovery occurs in abstinent patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD). In addition to abstinence, other factors may have influenced this process and contributed to the inconsistencies. This review examines the factors investigated in this regard and describes the possible influence of each factor based on the evidence collected.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) have difficulty carrying out tasks which rely on prospective memory (PM). Since remembering to carry out an action in the future is crucial for living independently, it is of primary interest to develop strategies that improve PM performance in KS patients.
Design: The study employed a computer categorization task as an ongoing activity into which a PM task was embedded.
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) is a cognitive screen, available in three alternate versions. Aims of the current study were to examine the effects of age, education and intelligence on MoCA performance and to determine the alternate-form equivalence and test-retest reliability of the MoCA, in a group of healthy participants. In 210 participants, two MoCA versions and an estimator for premorbid intelligence were administered at two time points.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlcoholic Korsakoff's syndrome is characterized by severe amnesia, also affecting spatial memory. To date, research on cognitive rehabilitation in these patients is scarce. Aim of the present study is to examine the efficacy of a mnemonic strategy training in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction And Aims: Cognitive impairments in substance use disorder predict treatment outcome and are assumed to differ between substances. They often go undetected, thus the current study focuses on the prevalence of and differences in cognitive functioning across substances by means of a cognitive screen at the early stage of addiction treatment.
Design And Methods: The Montreal Cognitive Assessment was administered to outpatients seeking treatment for substance use disorder.
Unlabelled: ABSTRACTObjectives:Errorless learning is a promising rehabilitation principle for learning tasks in patients with amnesia, including patients with Korsakoff's syndrome. Errorless learning might possibly also contribute to decreases in behavioral and psychiatric problems, as patients in long-term care facilities become more independent after training. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of errorless learning on potential changes in psychotic and affective symptoms, aggression and apathy, in contrast with a control group who received care as usual.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this review, we present a survey on Korsakoff's syndrome (KS), a residual syndrome in patients who suffered from a Wernicke encephalopathy (WE) that is predominantly characterized by global amnesia, and in more severe cases also by cognitive and behavioral dysfunction. We describe the history of KS and its definition, its epidemiology, and the lack of consensus criteria for its diagnosis. The cognitive and behavioral symptoms of KS, which include anterograde and retrograde amnesia, executive dysfunction, confabulation, apathy, as well as affective and social-cognitive impairments, are discussed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNeuropsychiatr Dis Treat
November 2017
Background: Errorless learning (EL) is a promising rehabilitation principle for (re)learning instrumental activities in patients with amnesia, including patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS). Successfully (re)learning tasks might improve the sense of competence and independence, and subsequently the quality of life. Quality of life in patients with KS has received limited attention, and no studies have been conducted to experimentally examine the effect of EL on quality of life in patients in this patient group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To examine the applicability of an alcohol-avoidance training procedure in patients with alcohol dependence and alcohol-induced neurocognitive disorders (NDs), we trained 2 groups that differed in the degree of cognitive impairment: One group fulfilled the DSM-5 criteria for alcohol-induced mild ND, and 1 group was diagnosed with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) (alcohol-induced major ND, confabulatory/amnesic subtype; DSM-5). The intervention is assumed to match the preserved cognitive capacity for implicit learning in both groups.
Methods: Fifty-one inpatients with a mild ND and 54 inpatients with KS were trained.
Errorless learning has proven to be an effective method for (re)learning tasks in several patient groups with amnesia. However, so far only a handful of studies have examined the effects of errorless learning in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome. The aims of this feasibility study were to (a) examine the effects of errorless learning training on (re)learning tasks in a patient with Korsakoff's syndrome, (b) examine the effects of the nature of the training on the execution of the tasks, and (c) examine characteristics that may mediate learning outcome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSyntactic priming, the phenomenon in which participants adopt the linguistic behaviour of their partner, is widely used in psycholinguistics to investigate syntactic operations. Although the phenomenon of syntactic priming is well documented, the memory system that supports the retention of this syntactic information long enough to influence future utterances, is not as widely investigated. We aim to shed light on this issue by assessing patients with Korsakoff's amnesia on an active-passive syntactic priming task and compare their performance to controls matched in age, education, and premorbid intelligence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Intrusions on verbal memory tests have been used as an index for clinical confabulation. Severe memory impairments in combination with executive dysfunction have been suggested to be the underlying mechanism of confabulation, but to date, this relation is unclear. The aim of this study was (a) to examine the relation between (different types of) intrusions and confabulations in a large sample of confabulating patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) and (b) to investigate whether different measures of executive functioning and memory performance are related to provoked and spontaneous confabulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPatients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) typically have difficulties in recognizing the impact of their alcohol-related cognitive deficits on daily-life functioning. In this study, mean scores on self-reported complaints (measured with Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2-Restructured Form; MMPI-2-RF) and cognitive performance (measured with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third edition; WAIS-III; and the California Verbal Learning Test; CVLT) are compared between two matched patient groups with severe (KS) and mild alcohol-related cognitive disorders or non KS (NKS). KS patients demonstrate significantly lower scores on the WAIS-III indices and on the CVLT than the matched NKS group, and significantly higher scores on MMPI-2-RF validity scales that indicate denial of psychological complaints.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: Impaired illness insight may hamper treatment outcome in patients with alcohol-related cognitive deficits. In this study, a short questionnaire for the assessment of illness insight (eg, the Q8) was investigated in patients with Korsakoff's syndrome (KS) and in alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients with mild neurocognitive deficits.
Methods: First, reliability coefficients were computed and internal structure was investigated.
The prevention of seclusion and other coercive measures has become a priority for mental health facilities, and numerous comprehensive programs to reduce the use of these containment procedures, have been developed. It is, however, poorly understood which interventions or elements of programs are effective and by which mechanisms or processes change is mediated. The present study explores the effects of an intervention by which a reduction in the use of seclusion was achieved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction And Aims: Treatment planning for alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients is often preceded by the assessment of psychopathology and personality with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2). However, during periods of abstinence, cognitive impairments (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF