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Journal of The Korean Society of Emergency Medicine 2013;24(4): 370-377. |
Long-term Prognosis and Neuro-psychosocial Deficits in Post-cardiac arrest Patients |
Woo Jin Jung, Hyun Kim, Yong Sung Cha, Oh Hyun Kim, Tae Hoon Kim, Yong Won Kim, Kyoung Chul Cha, Kang Hyun Lee, Sung Oh Hwang |
Department of Emergency Medicine, Wonju College of Medicine, Yonsei University, Wonju, Koera. khyun@yonsei.ac.kr |
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ABSTRACT |
PURPOSE: Anoxic neurologic deficits are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in post-cardiac arrest patients.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), a series of life-saving actions, improve the chance of survival following cardiac arrest; however, there are few reports on neuropsychiatric function in patients successfully resuscitated after cardiac arrest. We conducted this study to evaluate the long-term neurologic, psychiatric, and social deficits in post-cardiac arrest patients.
METHODS: We reviewed medical records from eight university hospitals from January 2009 to December 2009. Patients, older than 14 years old, successfully resuscitated after cardiac arrest and with a cerebral performance category scale (CPC) 1 or 2 were enrolled. Among 56 included patients, the mean age was 57 years old and 37 patients were male. Forty-two cases were presumed to have cardiac etiology and 14 were considered to have a non-cardiac etiology. The initially recorded rhythms, in 50% of patients, were ventricular fibrillation and pulse-less ventricular tachycardia. The mean length of a hospital stay was 30 days.
RESULTS: At hospital discharge, 51 patients (91.1%) with successful resuscitation showed CPC 1 and 5 patients (8.9%) showed CPC 2. Twenty-four (42.9%) patients suffered from a variety of neuro-psychosocial deficits, such as memory disturbances, attention deficits, post-traumatic stress disorder, and difficulty initiating exercise.
CONCLUSION: Despite successful resuscitation, a considerable number of patients complained of various neuro-psychiatric deficits. The most common neuro-psychosocial deficits were disturbances in short-term memory. |
Key words:
Cardiac arrest, Cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Prognosis |
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