Most women with fibromyalgia report memory problems and inability to concentrate, and most also suffer from anxiety and depression, according to a new Spanish report.
Its authors recommend that their findings be further analyzed to improve the well-being of women with the disease.
The study, “Cognitive Complaints in Women with Fibromyalgia:
Are they due to depression or cognitive dysfunction?”
It appeared in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology.
Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain disorder characterized by widespread pain and tenderness, fatigue, restless sleep, stiffness, and mood disturbances.
Patients often have cognitive impairment, but clinicians are unsure whether this is due to cognitive dysfunction or whether depressive symptoms are to blame.
“Despite the high frequency of personal cognitive complaints in patients with fibromyalgia, very few previous studies have specifically sought to quantify the extent of these complaints in the female population,” according to the authors of the study, which took place at the Santa María Hospital in Lleida, a city in northeastern Catalonia.
Between August 2012 and March 2014, researchers recruited 105 women with fibromyalgia and conducted neuropsychological assessments, including measures of attention span and executive function.
Participants completed questionnaires on various topics, including cognitive impairment, anxiety, depression, pain intensity, physical functioning, sleep quality, and quality of life.
Nearly 83% of the women had cognitive problems, 23% of them mild and the remaining 60% moderate to severe.
Overall, depressive symptoms, poor working memory, and poor daily physical functioning were more common among women who reported cognitive impairment.
Overall, 82% of the women showed symptoms of depression and 70% had “significant levels of anxiety,” while 68.6% of the participants suffered from both depression and anxiety.
“The results of this study confirm that personal cognitive complaints are very common in patients with fibromyalgia, but that they are not exclusively linked to depressive symptoms.
