Abstract
Purpose :
Diabetic retinopathy (RD) lesions may reflect similar processes of damage to cerebral microcirculation. Signs of retinopathy are associated with a higher incidence of cerebrovascular disease (CVD), independently of other risk factors.
HYPOTHESIS.
The presence and degree of severity of diabetic retinopathy is an indicator of macrovascular and microangiopathic cerebral vascular damage associated with greater cognitive deterioration and greater disability in patients with stroke
GENERAL PURPOSE
To determine the relationship between diabetic retinopathy and cognitive, functional status in patients with stroke
Methods :
A comparative cross-sectional study was performed in patients with Atherosclerosis Cerebral Infarction (ICA) of large and small vessels, with less than 6 months of evolution, to which the presence and severity of RD was determined, according to the ETDRS scale, neuropsychological tests. ( CASI and EXIT 25) and functional evaluation (RankinM and Barthel) was performed.
Results :
81 patients were included . RD prevalence of 35.8%. .When comparing means in the scores of neuropsychological tests and functional scales, a statistically significant difference was found in the patients with retinopathy, in the CASI ( 69.4 vs 78.8 P=0.046*) test, with a lower score and in the EXIT 25 test with a higher mean ( 69.4 vs 78.8 P=0.046*) which suggests Cognitive impairment in these patients. The results in the means of the functional scales were also lower in Barthel (75.56 vs 81.5 P=0.76) and higher in Rankin (2.13 vs1.82 P=0.84), which suggests a greater disability at the time of the review, however, these differences were not statistically significant for this variable.
It is observed that the most affected cognitive domains in patients with diabetic retinopathy were: attention / orientation and memory
Conclusions :
RD was associated with lower scores on cognitive assessments, but not on functional scales. The results, when categorized and adjusted for age and anatomical characteristics of the infarct, maintained an association between the overall cognitive deficit measured by these scales. In the multivariate model of covariates, small-vessel infarction was found for additional cognitive deficit . This suggests that the microvascular damage found in retinopathy may contribute to the worse cognitive outcome in these patients
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.