Effect of Giardia lamblia Infection on the Cognitive Function of School children

Background: the association between helminthic parasitic infection and cognitive function has long been recognized, howeverthere are few reports about giardia lamblia infection. this paper describes a study about the effect of g. lamblia infectionon the cognitive function . methods: one hundred thirty two children infected with g. lamblia from robat karimsouth of western tehran, iran were compared with 150 children without any parasitic infection. these two groups wereidentical in socioeconomic and nutritional status. cognitive function was assessed using, three tests from wechslerintelli gence scale for children and one subset of the clinical evolution of language function. results: comparison of twogroups revealed that un infected children improved significantly more than children who had g. lamblia infection in the testsof fluency (p< 0.02) and digit-span forwards/ backwards (p< 0.004). conclusion: regular stool examination is suggestedin areas with low hygienic conditions, since g. lamblia infection might be present without any clinical manifestation.