Neuropsychological Functioning in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Twenty-two patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), 10 with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and 9 normal controls were evaluated for higher level cognition. memory, vocabulary, visuomotor ability, and complex psychomotor functioning. All patients were clinically stable at the time of testing and received physical, neurological, and serological evaluations. SLE patients demonstrated a statistically significant decrease in visuomotor ability in comparison to both RA patients and. normal controls. In addition, SLE patients had lower scores on tests of vocabulary knowledge, higher level cognition, and complex psychomotor functioning, in comparison to normal controls. They also demonstrated decreased long-term verbal and visual memory. Neuropsychological dysfunction was found in SLE patients with and without a history of clinical central nervous system involvement, This latter finding suggests a group of SLE patients have subclinical CNS impairment.