Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Neuropsychiatry

Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension (IIH), a disorder of unknown etiology, may occur in all age groups, but is most common in young obese women. Goals of treatment are to preserve vision and alleviate symptoms. Cognitive function is not addressed routinely during clinical evaluation of IIH patients.This study was designed to test whether there is cognitive impairment in IIH patients or not and to evaluate the nature and characteristics of cognitive functions in these patients. A case-control study conducted on 40 subjects (20 with IIH and 20 controls), patients were exposed to full clinical, and neurological examination. All subjects (patients and controls) were exposed to cognitive testing using eight psychometric tests and neurophysiological assessment using contingent negative variation (CNV) and P300. Patients with IIH performed significantly worse than controls in multiple cognitive domains (p value {u2264} 0.05). Deficits were most pronounced in working memory, executive functions, visuospatial functions, attention and processing speed. Our results indicate that patients with IIH have significant cognitive impairment, all domain measures showed a statistically significant difference from normal individuals, indicating that there is a form of multidomain cognitive impairment in IIH. The relationship between cognitive impairment and chronically elevated intracranial pressures and its role in contributing to patient morbidity should be concidered

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