Difference between psychostimulant users and opioid users in recovery of cognitive impairment, measured with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA®)

Objective Substance use disorder (SUD) can lead to cognitive impairment. The objective of our study is to investigate differences in cognitive impairment between psychostimulant users and opioid users after long-term abstinence. Specifically, we expected patients with a mainly high-frequency use of psychostimulants to show less improvement on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA (R)) screening. Methods The overall analyses include patients (N = 91) having MoCA (R) scores from both the time of admission and before discharge from long-term treatment. The studied subgroups comprised 21 participants each. Results The MoCA (R) sum-scores were statistically equal in the groups both at admission and at discharge. Within-subjects t-tests of the sum-score suggest a significant change from admission to discharge for the opiate group, but not for the psychostimulant group. The psychostimulant users were also tested later than the opioid users. Conclusion Our data indicate that there may be differences in how mainly psychostimulant-using patients recover in cognitive functioning compared to patients mainly using opioids. There should be a heightened focus on cognitive function, and adaptation of the treatment content may be warranted for patients with mainly psychostimulant use.