Self-rated emotional functioning of patients with neurological or asymptomatic form of Wilson's disease.
Psychopathology was assessed in 50 patients with the neurological form of Wilson's disease (WD-N) and in 17 asymptomatic patients (WD-A) compared to matched healthy controls and to rheumatoid arthritis (RA) control patients using The Hopkins Symptom Checklist. As hypothesized, WD-N patients had significantly lower interpersonal sensitivity and aggression/hostility scores than had healthy controls, but did not differ from them either in depression or anxiety levels. Retarded depression and anxiety were higher among RA patients than in WD-N patients. This nondistressed response to the chronic disabling disease was even more salient in 19 WD patients with lesions in basal ganglia only. WD-A patients did not differ from their healthy peers, which suggests a tendency towards hypercompensation and denial in the former. WD-N patients' limited awareness of their deficits (including impaired control of affective behavior) seems to result from their brain damage implicating the basal ganglia.
Seniów
Joanna
J
Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, 2nd Department of Neurology, Warsaw, Poland. seniówy@ipin.edu.pl
Mroziak
Barbara
B
Członkowska
Anna
A
Jedryka-Góral
Anna
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology*; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000209:etiology; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000503:physiopathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003863:Depression / Q000209:etiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006527:Hepatolenticular Degeneration / Q000145:classification / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index