Cognitive performance in patients with coronary heart disease and cardiovascular risk factors in Chile

Introduction. Cardiovascular risk factors (CRF) are related to long-term cognitive impairment. Coronary heart disease (CHD) has been associated with bad cognitive performance in an inconsistent ways Aim. To measure the cognitive performance in Chilean patients with diverse CRF with and without CHD. Subjects and methods. Cross-sectional study of the cognitive performance of three groups of patients older than sixty years, without history of stroke: with CHD and high CRF (CHD-hCRF) (n = 62), with high CRF but without CHD (hCRF) (n = 57), and non hypertensive non diabetic (NHND) (n = 25). Results. Higher age, lower education and been men were significantly associated with cognitive impairment in the total sample. There were no differences in the proportion of cognitive impairment and age between the groups. The CHD group had a predominance of men and a higher proportion of high cholesterol and periphery vascular disease than the other groups. The NHND group was more educated than the other groups. After adjusting for years of education and sex there were no significant differences in the neuropsychological performance and depression scales between the groups, been the coronary group significantly more functionally impaired. Conclusions. Isolated CHD is not associated with worse cognitive performance in patients, but it is related with greater systemic vascular damage and functional impairment in patients without history of stroke.