Cognitive dysfunction in patients with multiple sclerosis treated with first-line disease-modifying therapy: a multi-center, controlled study using the BICAMS battery

What Was Tested

This controlled clinical trial paper looks at Glatiramer Acetate in the context of multiple sclerosis.

The Brief International Cognitive Assessment for Multiple Sclerosis (BICAMS) battery is very short and highly sensitive and can be used to evaluate cognitive status in the disease.

Why It Was Studied

Multiple sclerosis (MS) can impair cognitive functions even in the early stages.

BICAMS and the Expanded Disability Status Scale were applied to the study group.

Who Took Part

The study group was 110 patients.

PubMed indexes the participants as young adults and adults, both men and women.

Relapsing remitting MS patients using DMDs were enrolled in the study and monitored for 12 months.

One hundred and two healthy subjects (female to male ratio 68:34) were enrolled into the study.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a single-blind study.

In this single-blind Glatiramer Acetate study one party knew the assignments and the other did not.

A time span of 12 months appears in the methods.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Cognitive Dysfunction, Glatiramer Acetate, Immunologic Factors, Interferon beta-1a, Interferon beta-1b, Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting and Outcome Assessment, Health Care.

The authors tagged it with the keywords BICAMS battery, Cognition and Disease-modifying drugs.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a single-blind study of Glatiramer Acetate in 110 patients in people with multiple sclerosis over 12 months.

The publication is from 2017 (Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology), a journal based in Italy.

More context: the Glatiramer Acetate compound page, Multiple sclerosis research.