A Study on Neurocognitive Function in Recovered Acute Psychosis Patients

Objective: acute psychosis is one of the common psychotic illnesses described as acute and transient psychotic disorder in icd - 10 and brief psychotic disorder in dsm - iv - tr. onset is usually abrupt to acute and the illness subsides within 1 to 3 months. complete recovery usually occurs. cognition is expected to return to premorbid level with recovery. the aims of this study is to study the neurocognitive function of patients with acute psychosis after complete recovery. methods: a total of 180 patients initially diagnosed to be suffering from acute psychosis as per the criteria of icd - 10 - dcr, 1993 were screened and kept in follow - up for 3 months. cognitive assessment of 20 patients satisfying selection criteria were done using wisconsin card sorting test ( wcst ), spatial working memory test ( swmt ), and continuous performance test ( cpt ) after full recovery from acute psychosis, and compared with healthy controls. results: there was significant improvement in performance in wcst, cpt, and swmt following recovery from acute psychosis. cognitive parameters of the patient group were compared with that of healthy controls and there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups. conclusion: with complete recovery from acute psychosis, there occurs improvement in cognitive functions almost to the pre - morbid level. executive functions, working memory, attention and concentration return to pre - morbid level