Cognitive Examination In Thalassemia Patients

Many studies on thalassemia patients have shown cognitive decline that may affect the patients’ life. To clarify the cognitive value in thalassemia patients, we performed a neuropsychological test on these patients.

This was a prospective observational analytic with case control study involving 40 thalassemia patients and 40 controls similar for age, sex, and education. All subjects underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological test including visual cognitive assessment.

Compared to controls, patients with thalassemia aged 15-47 years old had poorer results in world list recall (p=0.026), TMT-B (p=0.042), clock drawing test (p=0.049), ADAS-Cog (p=0.014), logical memory (p=0.001) and digit symbol (p<0.001). These results indicate that thalassemia patients have significantly lower attention, verbal memory capability, and executive function.

Our findings concluded that patients with thalassemia have impaired multiple cognitive domains.