title: Memory Loss, Alzheimer's Disease and General Anesthesia: A Preoperative Concern.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The long-term cognitive effects of general anesthesia are under intense scrutiny. Here we present 5 cases from 2 academic institutions to analyze some common features where the patient's or the patient family member has made a request to address their concern on memory loss, Alzheimer's disease and general anesthesia before surgery.
  
  
  METHODS
  Records of anesthesia consultation separate from standard preoperative evaluation were retrieved to identify consultations related to memory loss and Alzheimer's disease from the patient and/or patient family members. The identified cases were extensively reviewed for features in common. We used Google® (http://www. google.com/) to identify available online information using "anesthesia memory loss" as a search phrase.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Five cases were collected as a specific preoperative consultation related to memory loss, Alzheimer's disease and general anesthesia from two institutions. All of the individuals either had perceived memory impairment after a prior surgical procedure with general anesthesia or had a family member with Alzheimer's disease. They all accessed public media sources to find articles related to anesthesia and memory loss. On May 2nd, 2011, searching "anesthesia memory loss" in Google yielded 764,000 hits. Only 3 of the 50 Google top hits were from peer-reviewed journals. Some of the lay media postings made a causal association between general anesthesia and memory loss and/or Alzheimer's disease without conclusive scientific literature support.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The potential link between memory loss and Alzheimer's disease with general anesthesia is an important preoperative concern from patients and their family members. This concern arises from individuals who have had history of cognitive impairment or have had a family member with Alzheimer disease and have tried to obtain information from public media. Proper preoperative consultation with the awareness of the lay literature can be useful in reducing patient and patient family member's preoperative anxiety related to this concern.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Thaler
authors.forename: Read
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Siry
authors.forename: Lufan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.forename: Paul S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: García
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Renyu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Liu