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Postural Stability in Cigarette Smokers and During Abstinence from Alcohol
Author(s) -
Schmidt Thomas P.,
Pennington David L.,
Durazzo Timothy C.,
Meyerhoff Dieter J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
alcoholism: clinical and experimental research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.267
H-Index - 153
eISSN - 1530-0277
pISSN - 0145-6008
DOI - 10.1111/acer.12409
Subject(s) - abstinence , alcohol , medicine , smoking cessation , alcohol consumption , alcohol dependence , psychology , physical therapy , psychiatry , biochemistry , chemistry , pathology
Background Static postural instability is common in alcohol‐dependent individuals ( ALC ). Chronic alcohol consumption has deleterious effects on the neural and perceptual systems subserving postural stability. However, little is known about the effects of chronic cigarette smoking on postural stability and its changes during abstinence from alcohol. Methods A modified F regly ataxia battery was administered to a total of 115 smoking (s ALC ) and nonsmoking ALC (ns ALC ) and to 71 smoking (s CON ) and nonsmoking light/nondrinking controls (ns CON ). Subgroups of abstinent ALC were assessed at 3 time points ( TP s; approximately 1, 5, 34 weeks of abstinence from alcohol); a subset of ns CON was retested at 40 weeks. We tested whether cigarette smoking affects postural stability in CON and in ALC during extended abstinence from alcohol, and we used linear mixed effects modeling to measure change across TP s within ALC . Results Chronic smoking was associated with reduced performance on the S harpened R omberg eyes‐closed task in abstinent ALC at all 3 TP s and in CON . The test performance of ns ALC increased significantly between 1 and 32 weeks of abstinence, whereas the corresponding increases for s ALC between 1 and 35 weeks were nonsignificant. With long‐term abstinence from alcohol, ns ALC recovered into the range of ns CON and s ALC recovered into the range of s CON . Static postural stability decreased with age and correlated with smoking variables but not with drinking measures. Conclusions Chronic smoking was associated with reduced static postural stability with eyes closed and with lower increases of postural stability during abstinence from alcohol. Smoking cessation in alcohol dependence treatment may facilitate recovery from static postural instability during abstinence.