Do patients have Mental Changes post heart surgery due to anesthesia?

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Specializes in interested in NICU!!.

hello, i have a question and sorry if its silly. i just had to ask as i just heard a co-worker of mine say this to another co-worker. my co-worker's dad is going to have an open heart surgery tomorrow-and long story short she was saying that 'anesthetic' can change people mentally. is this true? she went on about saying that her step mom was talking to her saying that, "well, you know these big surgeries can change people", and she told her that it's not the 'type' of surgery but rather the anesthetic being used that people come back different?

thanks in advance for taking the time to answer this :wink2:

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You might get a better response with a more-descriptive thread subject title than "Changed".

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Specializes in CRNA.

There is an increased incidence of depression following open heart surgery. And a small percentage of the elderly can have some short term memory changes for weeks to months after receiving benzo's. As for personality changes I've seen no published research related to any type of anesthesia. Best wishes to your co-worker and her father for a good outcome for his surgery, and anesthetic.

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Specializes in Anesthesia.
hello, i have a question and sorry if its silly. i just had to ask as i just heard a co-worker of mine say this to another co-worker. my co-worker's dad is going to have an open heart surgery tomorrow-and long story short she was saying that 'anesthetic' can change people mentally. is this true? she went on about saying that her step mom was talking to her saying that, "well, you know these big surgeries can change people", and she told her that it's not the 'type' of surgery but rather the anesthetic being used that people come back different?

thanks in advance for taking the time to answer this :wink2:

you might try looking up postoperative cognitive dysfunction.

http://www.eurosiva.org/archive/goteborg/abstracts/rasmus.htm

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Post-op mental changes following cardiopulmonary bypass are a well-documented phenomenon, and are unrelated to anesthesia. The phrase "pump-head" has been in use for years to describe this problem.

http://heartdisease.about.com/cs/bypasssurgery/a/pumphead.htm

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