Nature and sequence of neuropsychological deficits in alcoholics.

Abstract

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and the Halstead-Reitan Neuropsychological Test Battery for Adults were competed by 36 alcoholics and 21 nonalcoholics with a diagnosis of functional disorder and 30 with a diagnosis of brain damage, no sooner than 8 days after hospital admission and detoxication. The alcoholics displayed a broad range of neuropsychological impairment, with differentially greater deficit on tasks requiring problem-solving skills, perceptual-motor speed and spatial orientation; the alcoholics were indistinguishable from brain-damaged patients and performed significantly more poorly than did the psychiatric patients. Verbal intelligence was less impaired among alcoholics than were right hemisphere functions. Multivariate analyses and the Halstead Impairment Index significantly discriminated alcoholics from the psychiatric patients (with 88% overall accuracy), but not from the brain-damaged patients. Degree of overall impairment was associated with duration of problem drinking, but no developmental sequence of specific performance deficits with increasing years of problem drinking was found. The results are compared with those of other studies using the same measures, and are discussed in relation to premature aging.