Evaluation of cognitive function in fibromyalgia patients

Background: Patients with fibromyalgia often complain of memory difficulties. Aims: The objective of this study was to analyze the cognitive function in fibromyalgia (FM) patients and its relationship with depression, pain, fatigue and sleep disturbance. Methods: One hundred FM patients and 100 controls were submitted to mini mental state examination (MMES) and Beck depression scale. FM patients scored pain and fatigue in a visual analogical scale or VAS (from zero to 10) and were questioned about non restorative sleep. Results: The results showed that median MMES in FM patients was of 27 and in the control was of 28 (p=0.026). No association of mental dysfunction could be established with the presence of non restorative sleep (p=0.10). No correlation between MMES and Beck scale (p=0.21), VAS of pain (p=0.21) and VAS of fatigue (p=0.49) was found. Conclusions: We concluded that there is a higher level
of cognitive dysfunction in FM patients than in controls that cannot be explained by depression, pain, fatigue or non restorative sleep.