Rheumatoid arthritis and cognition dysfunction: lack of association with cumulative glucocorticoid use.

To study if cumulative glucocorticoid use could be related to cognitive impairment in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. A sample of 60 RA patients and 64 controls were studied for the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and depression scale (using CES-D or Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale). RA patients also filled a visual analogic scale (VAS) of pain and had disease activity evaluated by DAS-28 ESR (disease activity score using erythrocyte sedimentation rate).