title: Pattern of neuropsychological performance among HIV positive patients in Uganda.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Few studies have examined cognitive functioning of HIV positive patients in sub-Saharan Africa. It cannot be assumed that HIV positive patients in Africa exhibit the same declines as patients in high-resource settings, since there are differences that may influence cognitive functioning including nutrition, history of concomitant disease, and varying HIV strains, among other possibilities. Part of the difficulty of specifying abnormalities in neuropsychological functioning among African HIV positive patients is that there are no readily available African normative databases. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the pattern of neuropsychological performance in a sample of HIV positive patients in comparison to HIV negative control subjects in Uganda.
  
  
  METHODS
  The neuropsychological test scores of 110 HIV positive patients (WHO Stage 2, n = 21; WHO Stage 3, n = 69; WHO Stage 4, n = 20) were contrasted with those of 100 control subjects on measures of attention/concentration, mental flexibility, learning/memory, and motor functioning.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed significant group differences on measures of verbal learning and memory, speed of processing, attention and executive functioning between HIV seropositive and seronegative subjects.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Ugandan patients with HIV demonstrated relative deficits on measures of verbal learning and memory, speed of processing, attention, and executive functioning compared to HIV negative controls. These results from a resource limited region where clades A and D are prevalent are consistent with previous findings in the developed world where clade B predominates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. kevinr@neurology.unc.edu
authors.forename: Kevin R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Robertson
authors.forename: Noeline
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Nakasujja
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Seggane
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Musisi
authors.forename: Elly
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Katabira
authors.forename: Thomas D
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Parsons
authors.forename: Allan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ronald
authors.forename: Ned
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sacktor
mesh_terms: D015526:AIDS Dementia Complex / Q000209:etiology; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology; D018450:Disease Progression; D005260:Female; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014454:Uganda / Q000453:epidemiology