The changes in the structure of cognitive functions and anxiety in cardiac surgery patients depending on the severity of carotid arteries

Highlights. The article revealed that severe (more than 50%) carotid artery (CA) stenosis was associated with significant slowdown of the information selection processes, and these patients were characterized by older age and tendency to an increase in trait anxiety compared to the patients without CA stenosis.

It was found that the reduced attention and memory was a typical feature of the cognitive status in patients with severe CA stenosis in the early postoperative period of cardiac surgery in comparison with the patients without CA stenosis. At the same time the speed characteristics indicators of the information selection processes in these patients are positively related to state anxiety.

Aim. The cardiac surgery patients were studied in order to analyze the postoperative changes in the efficiency of selection information and memory processes depending on the degree of carotid artery (CA) stenosis (including more than 50%) and the age and the role of the trait anxiety indicator assessed before surgery.

Methods. The prospective study included 229 patients undergoing elected coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or CABG and carotid endarterectomy (CEE). Each study participant underwent clinical, instrumental and extended psychometric examination before cardiac surgery and at 7-10 days after surgery. The evaluation of the extracranial vessels state was carried out before surgery using color duplex scanning. Based on the results of assessing the extracranial vessels state, all patients were divided into three groups: no stenosis (n = 124), CA stenosis less than 50% (n = 69) and more than 50% (n = 36).

Results. It was found out that the patients with CA stenoses more than 50% are characterized by a slower reaction under different conditions of visual stimuli selection and by an older age as compared with patients with no stenoses as well as patients with stenoses less than 50%. In the postoperative period of cardiac surgery in comparison with testing before surgery there was an improvement in the information selection stability (an increase in the number of processed symbols per 4 minute of the Bourdon's test (p<0.00006)) and short-term memory (p = 0.03) only in the group of patients without stenoses. The patients with stenoses of less than 50% had an increase the of the information selection stability but the short-term memory decrease (p<0.05) whereas the group with stenoses more than 50% had a decrease in both the stability of information selection and short-term memory (p<0,05). Additional factors of cognitive deficit in CA stenosis patients were trait anxiety associated with memory impairment and a history of stroke that related to a decrease in the effectiveness of a complex visual-motor reaction.

Conclusion. The comprehensive analysis of the cognitive status of cardiac surgery patients with different severity of CA stenosis showed that an increase in the age and stenosis degree is the factor of the reaction time slowdown under different conditions of information selection. To differentiate groups of patients depending on the severity of stenosis in the postoperative period the testing short-term memory and stability of attention is informative. These indicators improve in the group without stenosis but decrease in the group with pronounced stenosis. The trait anxiety and the history of stroke were the additional factors of memory impairment due to CA stenosis.

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