Cognitive Measures of Vietnam-Era Prisoners of War

Abstract : Experience as a prisoner of war (POW) could lead to cognitive impairment because of the injuries, including head trauma, and other stressors endured preceding and during capture, and during incarceration. Some research has reported decreased cognitive performance in repatriated POWs (RPOWs), while other research has found no cognitive impairment. The objective of this research is to assess the relative cognitive status of U.S. Navy Vietnam-era RPOWs using extant data from the Naval Operational Medicine Institute. Performance on 3 cognitive batteries was compared between RPOWs and a control group. These batteries were the Haistead-Reitan Neuropsychological Battery (HRNB), the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WMS), and the CogScreen-Aeromedical Edition (AE). The HRNB and WMS were each administered 3 times across 20 years, and the CogScreen-AE was administered once. The few significant differences between the cognitive performance of RPOWs and their matched controls did not indicate evidence of performance decrement for RPOWs on any cognitive measure. Results suggest that this group of RPOWs did not experience cognitive impairment as a result of their experience as POWs.