Avaliação Longitudinal da Velocidade de Processamento e Fluência Verbal na Esclerose Múltipla

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the central nervous system (CNS) that affects 64.4 people per 100,000 inhabitants in Portugal. In addition to impacting bodily function, MS affects approximately 40 to 70% of patients in neuropsychological terms. The objective of this study is to investigate the longitudinal evolution of processing speed and phonemic verbal fluency over a ten-year period, as well as to understand whether there is an association between these cognitive domains and whether there is a difference between sexes in their progression.Forty-one Portuguese adults and elderly individuals with MS participated in this study, including 24 women and 17 men, aged between 22 and 61 years (M = 37.4, SD = 10.6) and with reading skills ranging from 4 to 17 years (M = 12.6, SD = 3.9). Participants underwent neuropsychological assessment using the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) and Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) instruments at two points in time, with a ten-year interval between them. The results suggest improvement in the domains of processing speed and phonemic verbal fluency over the ten years, with no differences between the sexes. Furthermore, the data showed a strong correlation between the two domains over time. These results underscore the importance of assessing and monitoring neuropsychological domains during the progression of MS, in addition to providing greater understanding of its impact on processing speed and verbal fluency.