Cognitive deficits may compromise patients’ utilization of rehabilitative information. There is an increasing attention on the opportunity to integrate a specific support to cognitive functions in alcohol detox programme and the first step to program the clinical intervention is to have a complete overview of cognitive deficits in alcoholics clinical sample.

62 patients who refer to alcoholism service were screened at admission time. Cognitive functions were assessed by trained psychologist with a specific neuropsychological battery. The impact of clinical features as age, gender, scholarship and concurrent polyabuse was evaluated for each function.

The 45,7% of our sample shows a generalized decline. Subtests shows impairment's different degrees (26,1% verbal memory; 32,6% working memory; 50,0% psychomotor speed and coordination; 30,4% verbal fluency; 58,7% selective attention; 13,0% tower of London task; 41,3% executive functions; 56,5% sustained attention). Clinical features have different impact on cognitive functions.

Alcoholics patients shows a diffuse range of cognitive impairment. For this reasons a cognitive remediation programme could be a useful adjunctive intervention for the treatment of alcohol dependence.