Protecting the Brain While Healing Hearts: The Protective Role of Cognitive Reserve in Cardiac Surgery.

Objective: One of the most significant complications following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) is postoperative cognitive decline (POCD). CABG patients frequently experience considerable postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), including decline in attention, orientation, memory, judgment, and social functioning.

Design: These negative effects may potentially be resolved by a protective factor, cognitive reserve (CR) that has been considered to function as a buffer against the consequences of neuropathology.

Setting: We explored the frequency of POCD and CR in coronary artery disease patients undergoing CABG. We hypothesized that high levels of CR would protect against POCD after cardiac surgery.

Participants: We assessed 101 patients before surgery, and 4 months after cardiopulmonary bypass surgery with the use of extracorporeal circulation.

Measurements: Measures of cognitive functions, CR, anxiety, and depression were included in the assessment.

Results: Each patient was placed in the high (n = 50) or low CR (n = 51) group, based on median split. Chi-square tests effect showed that patients with low CR were more likely to a great extend to demonstrate postsurgical cognitive decline in attention, memory, visuospatial perception and executive functions than patients with high CR upon postsurgery neuropsychological assessment.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that CR can forecast neuropsychological outcomes of cardiac surgery, recognizing the patients with low CR and help them to participate to interventions programs that could slow cognitive aging or reduce the risk of dementia and enhance their overall postsurgical functional outcome.