Am J Phys Med Rehabil 2000 Jul-Aug;79(4):343-8
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Bruno RL, Zimmerman JR
The Post-Polio Institute, Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, New Jersey 07631, USA.
OBJECTIVE: Seventy-nine percent of respondents to the 1990 National Post-Polio Survey reported difficulty
"thinking of words I want to say," with 37% reporting frequent, moderate-to-severe word finding difficulty.
This study was undertaken to objectively document polio survivors' word finding difficulty and to identify its
relationship to fatigue, neuropsychologic processes requiring cortical activation, and a peripheral marker for
brain dopamine secretion. DESIGN: In this study, 33 polio survivors were administered the Post-Polio Fatigue
Questionnaire, Animal Naming and FAS Tests, and tests of attention and information processing speed.
Plasma prolactin was also measured as a marker for brain dopamine secretion. RESULTS: Subjects
reporting high fatigue severity and word finding difficulty had clinically abnormal or significantly lower Animal
Naming .
Test scores compared with subjects with low symptom severity. Impaired performance on the most difficult
tests of attention and information processing speed were also associated with lower scores on the word
finding tests. A significant negative correlation between Animal Naming Test scores and plasma prolactin
suggests that a decrement in brain dopamine secretion is related to reduced animal naming ability.
CONCLUSIONS:
These data support the hypothesis that decreased dopamine secretion, possibly secondary to poliovirus
damage to the basal ganglia, may underlie not only fatigue and impaired attention but also word finding
difficulty in polio survivors.
MeSH Terms:
Anomia/etiology*
Attention
Biological Markers
Dopamine/metabolism
Fatigue/etiology
Fatigue/complications
Female
Human
Male
Middle Age
Neuropsychological Tests
Postpoliomyelitis Syndrome/complications*
Prolactin/blood
Severity of Illness Index
Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Substances:
Prolactin
Dopamine
Biological Markers
PMID: 10892620, UI: 20348709