Cognition and perception deficits in fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis

Introduction: Cognitive disturbance in patients with fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis is today a topic of a great clinical interest, largely due to the fact that these persons often complain about cognitive problems. Objective: This study is aimed to assess the visuospatial memory, attention and perceptive capacities in chronic pain patients. Material and methods: Groups were constituted by fibromyalgia patients and rheumatoid arthritis patients, as well as a control group. All the subjects completed a battery of visual and spatial memory, speed of processing, working memory, attention, orientation and visuoperceptive abilities. A cognitive reserve measurement was obtained. Results: Results show that chronic pain patients displayed worse cognitive performance than controls. Moreover, arthritis patients execute poorly when compared to the group of fibromyalgia in tasks that demand visuoperceptive integration and visuomotor processing. Patients suffering fibromyalgia obtained worse punctuations than those with arthritis in spatial memory and spatial orientation tasks. Conclusions: Both groups developed important cognitive deficits, which cannot be explained by the collateral effects of such pathologies, because cognitive profiles are not similar and appear from the beginning of the disease.