If this is not your name, click here.
| | If this is not your name, click here. | | |
| | Contact Us | Order Now | Journals | Bookstore | Register a colleague | | |
| |  SFN: Combat Experience a Better Predictor of Cognitive Problems Than Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder By Glynn Wilson NEW ORLEANS, LA -- November 13, 2003 -- Combat experience is a better predictor of learning and memory problems than is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to a follow-up study presented here November 10th at the Society for Neuroscience 33rd Annual Meeting. The authors feel their study is the first examine the effects of combat versus non-combat experience along with PTSD on learning and memory. "PTSD is important to diagnose and treat; but combat itself can have some detrimental effects on learning and memory that [patients] may not have been aware of," said Louisa B. Prescott (Burriss), PhD, Neurosciences Laboratory, Dorn Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center, Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, Columbia, South Carolina. In previous studies, Dr. Prescott and fellow authors on the team had found that combat had more of an effect on long-term learning and memory than PTSD. Veterans with a current diagnosis of PTSD exhibited performance deficits relative to non-PTSD veterans on the Wechsler Memory Scale Paired Associate and Logical Recall subtests, as well as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Vocabulary subtest. Veterans with PTSD and combat experience showed even greater performance deficits than veterans with PTSD who did not have combat experience. "Non-combat veterans did significantly better than the combat veterans on both subscales of the memory tests," Dr. Prescott said in an interview. "That confirms that combat itself has a stronger effect than PTSD." By measuring eye-blink responses, the team found that PTSD subjects overreact to all stimuli, making it hard to learn, she said. In screening veterans for treatment, physicians should look at the kind of combat experience they have, and not just a diagnosis of PTSD, Dr. Prescott added. One of the most surprising results of the study showed that those who experienced combat but did not have PTSD scored the highest on all the memory and learning tests, indicating these individuals had higher intelligence and better coping skills. Also surprising was that pre-Vietnam era veterans scored significantly higher than Vietnam era or post-Vietnam era veterans, leading the researchers to conclude that they were recruited from a different population. The clinical relevance of this finding to VA patient care is that, while most PTSD patients come from the ranks of those with combat experience, combat is a better predictor of detrimental effects than PTSD, and higher intelligence scores may predict better coping skills and ameliorate the development of PTSD.
[Study Title: Effect of PTSD on Learning and Memory in Veterans With and Without Combat Experience: Abstract 006]
|
