Executive Functions in Bipolar Affective Disorder During Remission Phase of Mania

Background: Executive function is one of the important part of cognitive abilities that regulate our decision making and problem solving process. Generally it waxes and wanes in concert with the clinical symptoms of bipolar disorder. Though, it is still unclear that improvement in executive functions simply legs behind normalization of mood. Purpose: Present study was conducted to expend the limited knowledge base regarding executive function in bipolar affective disorder (mania) to reveal the  controversial issue in bipolar affective disorder so that a new dimension could be added while making a prognosis of the illness and a management plan. Methods: Executive function was assessed to 80 adult bipolar affective disorder patients with current episode of mania during remission phase equally included by gender. Only those patients were included fulfilling less than five years of illness and had two to three episodes. All they were assessed on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and compared to normal control. Result: Findings suggested impairment in domains of executive function. 41.3% patients performed poorer to normal control. They significantly performed poorer in all dimension of WCST except in non-perseverative errors, percent non-perseverative errors and failure to maintain set variable. But when compared on different dysfunction categories patients group did not significantly differ to each other on variables non-perseverative errors, percent non-perseverative errors, conceptual level responses, percent conceptual level responses, and failure to maintain set. Further, age, sex and education were to be found significantly influencing the performance on some variables of WCST. Conclusion: Undoubtedly, ample number of patients of bipolar affective disorder with manic episode does not reach to optimum level of their executive abilities during normal or remission phase of the illness and need consideration while managing them.