Our thanks to Susan D., in Georgia, who provided us with this article:
ublished: Sep 25, 2013 | Updated: Sep 25, 2013
By John Gever, Deputy Managing Editor, MedPage Today
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and Dorothy Caputo, MA, BSN, RN, Nurse Planner
VIENNA — High levels of educational attainment appeared to protect multiple sclerosis (MS) patients from the cognitive ravages of brain atrophy and demyelinating lesion burdens, a researcher said here.
Correlations between cognitive test results and the degree of MRI-measured brain pathology in 104 patients with MS and 33 with the pre-MS condition known as clinically isolated syndrome were markedly weaker in those in the top quartile of education compared with those in the lowest, said Daniela Pinter, PhD, of the Medical University of Graz in Austria.
In hierarchical regression models, the interactions between years of education and MRI measures of T2 lesion load and third ventricle width (indicating brain atrophy) were changed by R2=2.2 for T2 lesion volume and by R2=3.4 for third ventricle width (both P<0.05), she told attendees at the World Congress of Neurology.
These models also took account of age, sex, and disease duration.
Pinter said the findings applied across MS severity grades. “In MS patients with different phenotypes at different stages of the disease, higher education attenuated the negative effects of white matter lesion burden and thalamic atrophy on cognitive performance,” she concluded.
To comment – click the comment link shown below
…….
USE OUR SHARE LINKS at the top of this page – to provide this
article to others
…….
USE OUR SHARE LINKS at the top of this page – to provide this
article to others
……
REMAIN up to date
with MS News and Education
with MS News and Education
Visit: www.msviewsandnews.org to register
…………………….
.
Visit our MS Learning Channel on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/msviewsandnews
