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anesthesia

How risky is surgery for older adults' cognitive function?

Unplanned hospitalizations accelerate cognitive decline in older adults

Data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project has found that emergency and urgent hospitalizations are associated with an increased rate of cognitive decline in older adults.

Non-elective hospitalizations were associated with an approximately 60% acceleration in the rate of cognitive decline from before hospitalization. Elective hospitalizations, however, were not associated with acceleration in the rate of decline at all.

Anesthesia

Older news items (pre-2010) brought over from the old website

Anesthesia exposure before age 3 found not to impact cognitive performance

A twin study challenges findings that receiving anesthesia at a very young age (below four) is associated with subsequent learning problems. The Dutch study involved 1,143 pairs of identical twins, and compared groups where both twins had been exposed to anesthesia before age 3, where neither had been exposed to anesthesia, or where only one member of the pair had been exposed to anesthesia. Cognitive performance at age 12 was assessed from a standardized national exam administered to all children in the Netherlands at that age. It was found that there was no difference in cognitive performance between twins where one had been exposed to anesthesia and the other had not. It therefore seems likely that the association is due to children likely to undergo surgery early in life having significant medical problems that are associated with a vulnerability to learning disabilities.

Bartels, M., Althoff, R. R., & Boomsma, D. I. (2009). Anesthesia and cognitive performance in children: no evidence for a causal relationship. Twin Research and Human Genetics: The Official Journal of the International Society for Twin Studies, 12(3), 246-253. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19456216

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-08/uov-grn080409.php

Common pediatric anesthesia drugs cause brain damage and learning and memory problems in infant rats

A new study has found that drugs commonly used to anesthetize children can cause brain damage and long-term learning and memory disturbances in infant rats. The rats appeared to behave normally in most other ways, and there were no outward signs of brain damage.

Jevtovic-Todorovic, V., Hartman, R. E., Izumi, Y., Benshoff, N. D., Dikranian, K., Zorumski, C. F., … Wozniak, D. F. (2003). Early Exposure to Common Anesthetic Agents Causes Widespread Neurodegeneration in the Developing Rat Brain and Persistent Learning Deficits. J. Neurosci., 23(3), 876-882. Retrieved from http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/23/3/876

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-02/wuso-cpa013003.php

No link between anesthesia and dementia

Submitted by Fiona McPherson on

Because long-term cognitive decline can occur in some older adults after undergoing surgery, there has been some concern that exposure to anesthesia may be associated with increased dementia risk. It is therefore pleasing to report that data from the very large, long-running Mayo Clinic Study, the Rochester Epidemiology Project, has found that receiving general anesthesia for procedures after age 45 is not a risk factor for developing dementia.

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