A paired case-control comparison of ziprasidone on visual sustained attention and visual selective attention in patients with paranoid schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: Cognitive impairment is one of the main targets of the treatment to schizophrenia. The atypical antipsychotic was proved to improve the cognition function of the patients. There were a few of clinical trials to detect the effect of medicine treatment on attention function. But the respective changes of sustained and selective attention in the patients with treatment of ziprasidone were rarely investigated. This present study was to explore the effect of ziprasidone on visual sustained and selective attention in schizophrenia. PATIENTS AND METHODS: There were 81 patients who were treated with ziprasidone and matched with 81 healthy controls in this open-label trial. The functions were evaluated by Continuous Performance Test (CPT) and Color Word Test (CWT) at baseline and eight weeks later. Between two groups the functions were compared at the two time points, and in patients group those were compared prior to and post treatment. RESULTS: As compared with healthy controls, the functions of the patients were worse. But after 8 weeks treatment of ziprasidone the functions improved in some degree, which were indicated by the change of CPT and CWT indexes. Furthermore, those of patients post treatment were better than prior to treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with paranoid schizophrenia have visual sustained and selective attention deficits. The deficits can be improved partly with ziprasidone treatment.