IMPACT OF DIABETES MELLITUS ON COGNITIVE DELAY AMONG PATIENTS WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE, VASCULAR AND MIXED DEMENTIA

Aim of the study: to examine the additional effect of diabetes mellitus (DM) on cognitive delay of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Vascular dementia (VD) and mixed dementia (MD). Material and methods: We examined 45 elderly patients with DM (9 AD, 21 VD and 15 MD) and 101 patients without DM (38 AD, 56 VD and 37 MD) twice with the following neuropsychological battery: Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Isaack’s Set Test (IST), Literal Fluency Test (LFT), 10 words memory test (10WMT), Clock Drawing Test (CDT), Digit Span Test (DST), Digit Symbol Substitution Test (DSST), Hamilton Depression Scale (HDS). Results: DM was associated with additional MMSE scoring decrease in MD, IST delay among AD and MD, recognition decrease among VD and MD and DST forward impairment forward among AD. We found additional decrease on DSST scoring and delayed recall and increasing of HDS at all groups. Conclusions: DM could cause mild additional cognitive deterioration and might increase the severity of depression in patients with AD, VD and MD even for the short period of time. The most affected cognitive domains are delayed recall, recognition and complex attention.