Introduction:

the consumption of drugs and other psychoactive substances produces physical, social and mental damages, generating cognitive impairment, which causes difficulties in socialization and in memory operational components.

Objective:

to determine the correlation between cognitive impairment and the consumption of psychoactive substances in drug-dependent patients of the rehabilitation program, and its relationship with type of drug consumed and time of consumption, considering current age and educational level achieved.

Method:

an observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the presence of cognitive impairment in 76 male drug-dependent patients between 18 and 66 years of age, admitted to the Unidad de Conductas Adictivas (UCA) of the Instituto de Neurociencias de Guayaquil (INC), Ecuador, between January and July, 2016. Folstein test (MMSE) was applied after 45 days of stay in the program and in abstinence from consumption, and deterioration was correlated with time of consumption and type of drugs.

Results:

mild cognitive impairment was the most frequent, with a clear predominance of the age group between 18 and 24 years old which had 18 cases (64.3%), followed by the 25-29 age group with 14.3%.

Conclusions:

approximately one in three cases showed some type of alteration with mild cognitive impairment and a strong association between the impairment and the time of consumption, but there was no evidence of its correlation with the type of drug consumed.

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