The diagnostics of cognitive disorders (CD) in patients with essential arterial hypertension (EAH) is often necessary for the choice of treatment strategy.

To assess the role of neuropsychological and motivational factors in cognitive efficiency of elderly EAH patients.

Twenty-five patients with EAH took part in the study, stage 1–2, mean age was 67.6 ± 6.1. The assessment of cognitive functions embraced a quantitative measurement of intelligence quotient (IQ) with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Wechsler, 1955), and investigation into qualitative features of cognitive processes with Luria's neuropsychological assessment scheme (Luria, 1980) and Zeigarnik's procedure of pathopsychological study (Zeigarnik, 1972).

Within the psychological syndrome structure of CD in EAH patients the leading part is played by the neuro-dynamic factor, manifested in general lability, slowing down, and sudden exhaustion caused by reduction in energy of mental activity. The conclusion is supported by the high frequency of described symptoms among EAH patients and low dynamics of their reduction against the antihypertensive therapy (Pervichko et al., 2014, 2015). However, performance of experimental tasks makes 30% of EAH patients reveal reduced motivation. They would achieve poor results in general scoring, if compared with the group of highly motivated participants. Correlation analysis data show the interconnection between frequency disturbances in motivation and frequency in occurrence of various signs of cognitive decline, such as low efficiency in memorization and delayed recall, as well as low IQ indices.

The data provide a strong argument to support the hypothesis of particular importance of motivational factor of cognitive efficiency in elderly EAH patients.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.