Verbal memory following weight gain in adult patients with anorexia nervosa: A longitudinal study.
Eur Eat Disord Rev
; 31(2): 271-284, 2023 03.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36397677
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
Patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) show a moderate deficit in overall neuropsychological functioning. Since previous studies on memory performance mainly employed cross-sectional designs, the present study aims to investigate changes in verbal memory following weight-gain.METHODS:
Verbal memory was assessed with the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R; 'logical memory'-story-recall-subtest) and the California Verbal Learning Test-II (CVLT-II; 'verbal learning'). Included were 31 female patients with AN (18 restricting-, 13 purging-subtype; average disease duration 5.1 years; average baseline BMI 14.4 kg/m2 ) and 24 medication-free normal-weight healthy women adjusted for age at baseline (T0). In a post-treatment assessment of approx. 6 weeks with weight increase (T1), 18 patients with AN and 20 healthy women were assessed again. Group differences in verbal memory (i.e., WMS-R, CVLT-II) were assessed for the baseline comparisons with a multivariate ANOVA and longitudinal data were analysed with repeated measures (RM) ANOVAs.RESULTS:
At baseline, patients with AN as compared to healthy women displayed deficits in logical memory. In the follow-up assessment, patients with AN improved their logical memory significantly compared to healthy controls (p < 0.006). Furthermore, groups did not differ in verbal learning neither before nor after inpatient treatment.CONCLUSIONS:
Enhanced logical memory in patients with AN following weight-gain is probably due to the impaired memory as compared to healthy controls at T0. A survivorship bias could explain the improved memory performance in longitudinal data in contrast to cross-sectional studies. Patients with AN with poorer memory performance before inpatient treatment are at higher risk to drop out and need support.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Rememoração Mental
/
Anorexia Nervosa
Tipo de estudo:
Observational_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limite:
Adult
/
Female
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article