Fibromyalgia and memory study

Most people with fibromyalgia suffer from memory and concentration problems: A Spanish study published in the Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology states that most women with fibromyalgia say they have memory problems and can’t concentrate, and the majority also suffer from anxiety and depression.

Researchers performed neuropsychological assessments, which included measures of attention and executive functions. Patients were assessed by completing questionnaires of several topics including cognitive complaints, anxiety, depression, pain intensity, physical functioning, quality of sleep, and quality of life.

They reported that nearly 83 percent of the women had cognitive complaints, 23 percent of them mild and the other 60 percent moderate to severe. Depressive symptoms were generally described as low working memory ability and low everyday physical functioning and were more common in women who reported cognitive complaints. Collectively, 82 percent of women had symptoms of depression and 70 percent had “significant levels of anxiety,” while 68.6 percent of the participants had both depression and anxiety.

“The results of this study confirm that subjective cognitive complaints are very frequent in fibromyalgia patients, but that they are not exclusively related to depressive symptoms; functional and objective cognitive dysfunction could also be involved in their manifestation,” researchers wrote. They also urged doctors to “not minimize” cognitive complaints by their patients.

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