title: Cognitive and functional outcome after out of hospital cardiac arrest.
abstract: The nature of residual cognitive deficits after out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is incompletely described and has never been defined against a cardiac control (CC) group. The objective of this study is to examine neuropsychological outcomes 3 months after OHCA in patients in a "middle range" of acute severity. Thirty prospective OHCA admissions with coma >1 day and responsive but confused at 1 week, and 30 non-OHCA coronary care admissions were administered standard tests in five cognitive domains. OHCA subjects fell into two deficit profiles. One group (N = 20) had mild memory deficits and borderline psychomotor deficits compared to the CC group; 40% had returned to work. The other group (N = 10) had severe impairments in all domains. Coma duration was associated with group. Neither group had a high prevalence of depression. For most patients within the "middle range" of acute severity of OHCA, cognitive and functional outcomes at 3 months were encouraging.
authors.affiliation: Cognitive Neurology Unit, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. malexand@bidmc.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Michael P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Alexander
authors.forename: Ginette
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lafleche
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schnyer
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: Mieke
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Verfaellie
mesh_terms: D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D003128:Coma / Q000209:etiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004632:Emergency Medical Services; D006801:Humans; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D058687:Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest / Q000150:complications*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012016:Reference Values; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology