Review article
Neuropsychological deficits in patients with cardiogenic cerebral hypoxia

After long lasting cerebral ischaemia during cardiac arrest and even after short periods of cerebral hypoxia during cardiac surgery and implantation of a cardiac-defibrillator (ICD), both neurological and neuropsychological disorders can occur. The aim of this article was to present the effect of cardiogenic hypoxia of the central nervous system on the occurrence of cognitive impairment. Particular attention was paid to the short course of cardiac arrest during ventricular fibrillation in patients with ICD. After cardiac arrest the majority of patients have various neurological symptoms. Half of those patients who have been discharged from hospital has severe neurological deficits. Among the others the most common neuropsychological disorder is memory impairment and less common are attention and executive function deficits. After cardiac surgery neuropsychological deficits occur in the early postoperative period. According to recent studies, after several years of observation cognitive dysfunctions are comparable in the group after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and in the group with similarly severe coronary artery disease not undergoing the operation. Previous results of studies of neuropsychological impairments after ICD implantation were contradictory. Some of them showed cognitive deficits such as impaired short-term memory, attention and executive functions. Other studies however did not confirm occurrence of such impairments. This issue is important also because of the lack of a sufficient number of publications on the correlation between numbers of defibrillations in everyday life and cognitive deficits. In this article methodological difficulties of studies considering neuropsychological impairments after cardiogenic cerebral hypoxia are also described.