Whole Body Choice Reaction Time (WBCRT-C1) to Detect Cognitive Impairment in Patients with Depressive Disorder (DD): A Case-Control Study

Depressive disorder (DD) is a state of multiple neuro-psychological deficits. cognitive testing has proven beneficial in guiding treatment of depression. Since these neuro-cognitive testings require great deal of time and skill, measuring Reaction time (RT) can prove an alternative method of measure of cognition. RT is a sensitive tool to measure attention and execution. In our study whole body choice reaction time (WBCRT) is divided in to 2 chronoscopic readings WBCRT-C1and WBCRT-C2. WBCRT-C1 measures time required for central processing in the central nervous system which includes cognition and WBCRT-C2 measures total RT includes central processing and peripheral processing. Objective of the study was to measure and compare WBCRT-C1 in DD and controls, and to assess the correlation between WBCRT-C1 with MMSE and HAM-A score. Hospital based case-control study was conducted on total 68 young subjects, 34 subjects of DD aged between 18-45yrs their reaction times were compared with similar number of age and sex matched controls. WBCRT-C1 was more delayed in patients of DD (807±245 ms) than in controls (579±99ms). A significant correlation was found between WBCRT-C1 and MMSE (r=-0.7371, p=0.0001), HAM-A scores (r=0.3395 p=0.0046). WBCRT-C1 could be a quantitative tool to assess cognitive dysfunction in DD.