Neuro-cognitive profile and psychiatric morbidities of patients With bronchial asthma- a case control study

Aim: To evaluate the cognitive impairment in patients with bronchial asthma.
To compare cognitive impairment and prevalence of psychiatric morbidities in patients with bronchial
asthma and with healthy controls.
Method: This study was done at Allergy and Asthma clinic, the Govt. Stanley Medical College and
Hospital, Chennai during the period of 2008-2009.
70 consecutive patients of Bronchial asthma attending allergy and asthma clinic were chosen as the
study group.
The healthy attendants accompanying asthmatic patients formed the control group.
After matched to the age and sex, socio economic status and marital status, both group were analyzed
for cognitive profile and psychiatric morbidities by using Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCa)
and Multiphasic Questionnaire (MPQ)
Results: There is significant decrease in cognitive profile in patients with Bronchial asthma. There is
a highly significant difference in the psychiatric morbidity between the study and control groups.
Psychiatric morbidity is 3 times more common among the study group when compare to the control
group.
Conclusion: Bronchial asthma being a chronic disabling condition and also life threatening now and
then, because of frequent hypoxic attack it can produce neuronal damage and in turn leads to
cognitive impairment. Also it will make the patient psychologically unstable and create a psychiatric
problem and also presence of psychiatric morbidities often precipitate asthmatic attacks more
frequently. So it is essential to look for cognitive profile and psychiatric morbidities in all asthmatic
patients and manage appropriately for better remission of asthmatic attacks.