There is growing evidence that adults with type 2 Diabetes mellitus exhibit deficits in executive function. Primary purpose of this study was to assess executive function in type 2 DM patients. The age group studied was between 40-50 years and it was compared with the healthy controls. This is a cross sectional case control study, where in 50 consenting patients attending diabetology Outpatient department fulfilling the inclusion criteria were randomly chosen as cases and 50 consenting age, sex, education matched non diabetics were taken as controls. After screening with General Health Questionaire – 12 for psychiatric symptoms, Executive function was assessed with Digit Span Test, Verbal fluency test, Trail making test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Stroop Test. In our study we found that here was no significant difference between diabetic and non-diabetic group in case digit span, verbal fluency, stroop test and WCST. There was a statistically significant difference between case and control group in Trail Making Test (p = 0.01). There was average difference of 8 seconds between diabetic and non- diabetics. The Stroop test showed a similar slowing in diabetics of 3 seconds but it was not statistically significant. Executive functioning in diabetics was comparable to that of control group. Though Trail making test, showed a statistical difference between diabetics and non-diabetic, it was still within the normative range for the particular age group.
Keywords: Executive functions, Type 2 Diabetes, Stroop test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.
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DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v5i6.73
