Denial or unawareness of cognitive deficit associated with multiple sclerosis? A case report

Document Type

Article

Abstract

A nondemented, 55-year-old woman with a 20-year history of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) recently began having significant difficulties performing her job after several years of successful employment. While the patient acknowledged that others considered her job performance as being below standards, she did not subjectively experience any change in her cognitive functioning that would negatively impact job performance. She had no explanation as to why her job performance was now considered unsatisfactory. She also appeared to be in no distress over her situation. Was the patients unawareness a form of anosognosia or psychological denial of her clinical condition? We provide neuropsychological, neuroimaging, and behavioral descriptions of the patient that suggest that the underlying disturbance appeared to be a neuropsychologically based, impaired self-awareness (ISA). Clinical suggestions are provided for distinguishing between ISA and denial of disability (DD) in MS patients. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Publication Date

4-21-2014

Publication Title

Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology

ISSN

13803395

E-ISSN

1744411X

Volume

36

Issue

4

First Page

335

Last Page

341

PubMed ID

24601906

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1080/13803395.2014.890700

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