A narrative review on biopsychosocial predictors of cognitive impairment among multiple sclerosis patients: directions for Malaysia studies

Abstract

Cognitive impairment is the most disabling symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Researchers have been studying factors that could predict cognitive impairment among MS patients hoping to alleviate its consequences and gather indicators of the disease progression. However, there were limited up-to-date articles that review the predictors of cognitive impairment among MS patients. In Malaysia, the topic about cognitive functioning in MS was absent. This review aims to identify and synthesize the research evidence concerning biopsychosocial variables on cognitive impairment among this population for future directions in Malaysia researches. A narrative review was performed by identifying research articles from year 2004 to 2019 through PubMed, EBSCOhost, Scopus and Google Scholar. Full-text articles meeting the selection criteria were included for qualitative synthesis. A total of 12 studies were included. Studies included in this paper found that age, course of disease and anxiety predicts cognitive functioning. Mixed results were found among variables such as gender, disability, fatigue, burden of lesion, depression and educational level. Stress was correlated with cognitive functioning but it was not a significant predictor. Although many factors were found to affect cognitive functioning among MS patients, evidence provided from this review indicates that their relationships might not be linear and direct.