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Comparison of Cognitive Rehabilitation Versus Donepezil Therapy on Memory Performance, Attention, Quality of Life, and Depression Among Multiple Sclerosis Patients Publisher



Shahpouri MM1 ; Barekatain M2 ; Tavakoli M3 ; Mirmosayyeb O1 ; Safaei A1 ; Shaygannejad V1
Authors

Source: Neurology Research International Published:2020


Abstract

Background. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease of the central nervous system that affects cognitive performance and leads to depression and decreased quality of life (QOL). The current study aims to assess the effects of cognitive rehabilitation versus donepezil therapy on memory, attention, depression, and QOL in MS patients compared to placebo and control groups. Methods. Eighty MS patients were randomly selected from parallel randomized trials and divided into four groups: A: cognitive rehabilitation (10 sessions of 120 minutes), B: control (no intervention), C: donepezil (10 mg daily), and D: placebo. Patients received the intervention for three months. They were assessed for cognitive status, depression, and QOL prior to the intervention and immediately after that using abbreviated mental test (AMT), prospective and retrospective memory questionnaire (PRMQ), everyday memory questionnaire (EMQ), digit span, MSQOL-54, and second edition Beck depression inventory (BDI). We compared scores between groups after the intervention, as well as the progression of scores in every single group. Results. The cognitive rehabilitation group showed improvement in EMQ, RPMQ, digit span, physical and mental health subscales of MSQOL54, and depression (P < 0.05). We observed the same effect for donepezil except for the digit span test (P = 0.15). Intergroup comparison of scores showed the superiority of cognitive rehabilitation over donepezil in digit span, depression, and mental health scores. Conclusion. Both donepezil and cognitive rehabilitation effectively improve memory performance, attention, depression, and QOL in MS patients. Cognitive rehabilitation is superior altogether. This study is registered with the Iranian registry of clinical trials http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/IRCT2016042227522N1. © 2020 Mohammad Mahdi Shahpouri et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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