Comparison of Short Term Memory in Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Patients with and without Depression and Normal Adults Resident in Ahwaz Province

The neurobehavioral consequences of multiple sclerosis consistently include fatigue, clinical depression and cognitive dysfunction. The prevalence of severe depression in patients with multiple sclerosis is three times of the normal population. population.The researchers report that the Prevalence of depression is approximately 27-54 percent in people with multiple sclerosis. Depression clearly impairs memory function. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between depression and short term memory in relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis patients.
This was a cross-sectional study with 54 relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis adult and 14 healthy controls.Beck Depression Inventory, digit span test from Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale were applied from all participates.Then data were determined in SPSS16 software and with independent-t test were compared.
In this study,there was significant difference between patient and healthy groups on short term memory variable(P=0.05),but there was not significant difference between two groups patient with and without depression on short term memory(p=0.82)
In the first years of the disease,Short-term memory in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis can be affected. Depression had not influence on short term memory scores.