J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1995; 7:68-71
Copyright © 1995 by American Neuropsychiatric Association
Rate of information processing in patients with Wilson's disease
E Littman, A Medalia, G Senior and IH Scheinberg
Department of Psychology, Long Island University, New York, USA.
This study investigated the rate of information processing, independent of
motor speed, in neurologically affected Wilson's disease (WD) patients. Two
scanning tasks based on the Sternberg item-recognition paradigm were
administered to 17 neurologically symptomatic WD patients and 17 normal
control (NC) subjects. Although WD subjects do have longer response
latencies than NC subjects, their rate of information processing is the
same as the rate of the NC subjects. The longer response latencies are
attributable to their motor deficits. The clear impact of motor impairment
on test performance underlines the necessity for specialized assessment
measures that can accurately reflect the cognitive abilities of
motor-impaired patients. These findings suggest that Wilson's disease is
not characterized by slowed information processing.
