title: Cumulative Exposure to General anesthesias and cognitive dysfunction at age 75 in the Vienna Transdanube Aging "VITA" study.
abstract: Some reports have described general anesthesias as a risk factor for dementia in the elderly. The authors investigated whether the number of general anesthesias during a lifetime was associated with cognitive functioning in the community-based age cohort of a geographical area of Vienna. Out of 606 seventy-five-year-old subjects, 43 reported not having undergone anesthesia and 113 reported five or more anesthesias. The number of general anesthesias was not associated with extensive psychometric data. Cognitive dysfunction at age 75 was significantly associated with level of education, a history of major head trauma, and having lived in a rural environment during childhood.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Psychiatry, University Hospital for Psychiatry, Waehringer Guertel 18-20, A-1090 Vienna/Wien, Austria. Peter.Fischer@meduniwien.ac.at
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fischer
authors.forename: Helene
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wallner
authors.forename: Susanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jungwirth
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Weissgram
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Krampla
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.forename: Karl-Heinz
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Tragl
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000768:Anesthesia, General / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D001317:Austria / Q000453:epidemiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004493:Education; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012307:Risk Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors