Major heart surgery not much worse for cognition than other heart treatments

  • A large study found that older adults experiencing heart surgery showed more long-term cognitive decline than those having a less invasive treatment, but not a great deal more.

Data from 3,105 older adults (65+) who had either heart surgery or cardiac catheterization has found that those who had heart surgery didn’t experience much greater cognitive decline compared with those who had the much less invasive, catheter-based procedure.

Two years after the surgery, surgery participants showed a greater amount of decline equal to only 4.6 months of cognitive aging compared with those undergoing catheterization.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-12/e-bhn121818.php

Reference: 

[4500] Whitlock, E. L., L. Diaz-Ramirez G., Smith A. K., W. Boscardin J., Avidan M. S., & M. Glymour M.
(2019).  Cognitive Change After Cardiac Surgery Versus Cardiac Catheterization: A Population-Based Study.
The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. 107(4), 1119 - 1125.

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