Chemo Brain

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in Utilization Management.

Recently had a patient who had a few rounds of chemo and family c/o his mental faculties have greatly diminished and his personality has changed.

Could anyone tell me more about Chemo Brain, as pretty much everything else has been ruled out.

Have you ever seen a patient with this condition? Can you describe their behavior?

My patient was driving, walking, living alone but experiencing a decline, then by the time of the second day in the hospital, he was pretty delirious.

and more links.:)

Seeking Solutions to 'Chemo-Brain'

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_2_1x_Seeking_Solutions_to_Chemo-Brain.asp

Chemobrain: When cancer treatment disrupts your thinking and memory

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cancer-treatment/CA00044

leslie

Specializes in Acute Care Psych, DNP Student.

Here's a very good NYT article on Chemo Brain:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/health/29chemo.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=chemo+brain&st=nyt&oref=slogin

Specializes in Utilization Management.

One woman reported finding five unopened gallons of milk in her refrigerator and having no memory of buying the first four. A second had to ask her husband which toothbrush belonged to her.

At a family celebration, one woman filled the water glasses with turkey gravy. Another could not remember how to carry over numbers when balancing the checkbook.

Thank you, thank you! This is exactly what I was looking for -- direct examples of what this condition looks like clinically.

My patient was pretty a/o X 3 one day, the next was raving about "Gotta get back to Denver! Help me get back to Denver!"

Problem was, family stated he'd never been to Denver, and hailed from Long Island.

Things like that. UA was negative, blood cultures negative, head CT negative, it was driving us all crazy trying to figure out why he had a sudden, precipitous drop in cognition. Till someone mentioned "chemo brain."

Which I've never seen before, so I thought I'd ask. Anyone else have any clinical experience with this?

my sister in law - a lung ca survivor 6+yrs - said she had "chemo brain" with short term memory loss and confusion at times - she's better now but during treatment it was bad.

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