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Patients admitted to an ICU for any medical problem, whether it directly affects the mind or not, is likely to be discharged with a thought disorder properly labeled a neuropathy.  Neuroscientists at Ontario’s Western University report this result after studying 20 patients who entered their hospital’s ICU with non-neurologic problems.

Each patient was assessed with psychometric tests upon discharge, and 100% of them demonstrated cognitive defects in two or more spheres including attention, decision-making, logical reasoning, and memory.  This is not surprising since any illness such as cardiovascular disease, infection, or traumatic injuries severe enough to land you in the ICU may certainly have secondary effects on your brain.

If you or a family member is in the ICU or has been there, a post-discharge visit to a neurologist should be considered.  Also be certain that the patient in question has proper supervision during the weeks following hospital discharge in order to detect an sudden and possibly life-threatening deterioration in status.

Kimia Honarmand, Sabhyata Malik, Conor Wild, Laura E. Gonzalez-Lara, Christopher W. McIntyre, Adrian M. Owen, Marat Slessarev. Feasibility of a web-based neurocognitive battery for assessing cognitive function in critical illness survivors. PLOS ONE, 2019; 14 (4): e0215203 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0215203

#ICU #neuropathy #cognitivedeficit #memory #attention