TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kaiser, Jochen
A1  - Dietrich, Jörg
A1  - Amiri, Miena
A1  - Rüschel, Isa
A1  - Akbaba, Hazal
A1  - Hantke, Nonda
A1  - Fließbach, Klaus Konrad
A1  - Senf, Bianca
A1  - Solbach, Christine
A1  - Bledowski, Christoph
T1  - Cognitive performance and psychological distress in breast cancer patients at disease onset
T2  - Frontiers in psychology
N2  - Objective: Many cancer patients complain about cognitive dysfunction. While cognitive deficits have been attributed to the side effects of chemotherapy, there is evidence for impairment at disease onset, prior to cancer-directed therapy. Further debated issues concern the relationship between self-reported complaints and objective test performance and the role of psychological distress.
Method: We assessed performance on neuropsychological tests of attention and memory and obtained estimates of subjective distress and quality of life in 27 breast cancer patients and 20 healthy controls. Testing in patients took place shortly after the initial diagnosis, but prior to subsequent therapy.
Results: While patients showed elevated distress, cognitive performance differed on a few subtests only. Patients showed slower processing speed and poorer verbal memory than controls. Objective and self-reported cognitive function were unrelated, and psychological distress correlated more strongly with subjective complaints than with neuropsychological test performance.
Conclusion: This study provides further evidence of limited cognitive deficits in cancer patients prior to the onset of adjuvant therapy. Self-reported cognitive deficits seem more closely related to psychological distress than to objective test performance.
KW  - breast cancer
KW  - cognitive functions
KW  - psychological distress
KW  - attention
KW  - memory
Y1  - 2019
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/51758
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-517582
SN  - 1664-1078
N1  - Copyright © 2019 Kaiser, Dietrich, Amiri, Rüschel, Akbaba, Hantke, Fliessbach, Senf, Solbach and Bledowski. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
VL  - 10
IS  - Art. 2584
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  -