title: Cognitive deficits after aneurysmal and angiographically negative subarachnoid hemorrhage: Memory, attention, executive functioning, and emotion recognition.
abstract: The authors' aim was to investigate cognitive outcome in patients with aneurysmal and angiographically negative subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH and anSAH), by comparing them to healthy controls and to each other. Besides investigating cognitive functions as memory and attention, they focused on higher-order prefrontal functions, namely executive functioning (EF) and emotion recognition.
  
  
  
  Patients and healthy controls were assessed with tests measuring memory (15 Words Test, Digit Span), attention and processing speed (Trail Making Test A and B), EF (Zoo Map, Letter Fluency, Dysexecutive Questionnaire), and emotion recognition (Facial Expressions of Emotion Stimuli and Tests). Between-groups comparisons of test performances were made.
  
  
  
  Patients with aSAH scored significantly lower than healthy controls on measures of memory, processing speed, and attention, but anSAH patients did not. In the higher-order prefrontal functions (EF and emotion recognition), aSAH patients were clearly impaired when compared to healthy controls. However, anSAH patients did not perform significantly better than aSAH patients on the majority of the tests.
  
  
  
  In the subacute phase after SAH, cognitive functions, including the higher-order prefrontal functions EF and emotion recognition, were clearly impaired in aSAH patients. Patients with anSAH did not perform better than aSAH patients, which indicates that these functions may also be affected to some extent in anSAH patients. Considering the importance of these higher-order prefrontal functions for daily life functioning, and following the results of the present study, tests that measure emotion recognition and EF should be part of the standard neuropsychological assessment after SAH. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen.
authors.forename: Anne M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Buunk
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen.
authors.forename: Rob J M
authors.initials: RJM
authors.lastname: Groen
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology and Department of Neurosurgery, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen.
authors.forename: Wencke S
authors.initials: WS
authors.lastname: Veenstra
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen.
authors.forename: Jan D M
authors.initials: JDM
authors.lastname: Metzemaekers
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen.
authors.forename: Johannes H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: van der Hoeven
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen.
authors.forename: J Marc C
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0814-5680
authors.initials: JMC
authors.lastname: van Dijk
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuropsychology, University of Groningen, University Medical Center Groningen.
authors.forename: Jacoba M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Spikman
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001288:Attention; D002533:Cerebral Angiography; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D056344:Executive Function; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D002532:Intracranial Aneurysm / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D013345:Subarachnoid Hemorrhage / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D014706:Verbal Learning