Differentiation in neurological soft sign scores on schizophrenic patients with antipsychotic treatment

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness that affects cognitive aspect of a patient which need long term care with antipsychotics. Long term use of antipsychotic itself causes neurobiological change in the brain which results in alteration of cognitive function. The latest research had demonstrated that NSS (Neurological Soft Sign) reflect a rather wide range of cognitive impairments in schizophrenia which was not accounted for by age, education or severity of global cognitive deficits. Therefore, we examined the effects and impact of antipsychotic Haloperidol and Risperidone treatment in schizophrenic patient using NSS scores. The Study showed that chronic schizophrenia patients had a higher NSS scores than acute patients. NSS also significantly associated with all neuropsychological domains of MMSE in both groups and were confirmed when age, education and severity of global cognitive deficits were not accounted for. This study also obtained a lower NSS score in patients who received Risperidone therapy compared to Haloperidol with p = 0.003. Out of 5 NSS domain in the Heidelberg scale, there was a significant improvement in motor coordination and motor sequencing (p = 0.004) and (p = 0.048) in patients who received Risperidone therapy compared to Haloperidol. There was an association between the chronicity of the disease and NSS, NSS also shows that it’s not influenced by age, education and severity of global cognitive deficits as a screening instrument. Finally the improvement of NSS scores in the Risperidone group was far superior compared to the Haloperidol group particularly in motor coordination and motor sequencing.

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