Pump Head Might Not Exist After All
Monday August 17, 2009
"Pump head," a reduction in mental function sometimes seen after coronary artery bypass surgery, has been a point of controversy for most of this decade. A new study now questions whether pump head exists at all. Rather, the authors suggest, the cognitive deficits seen in these patients may be due to their underlying vascular disease, instead of to any surgery. Read about this latest twist in the pump head story here.
goodness, and I thought we had the right answer all along. This argument now has another face, but I believe it will generate even more controversy. Thanks for this information, Dr. Rich. I will pass it along – and add to the mix.
It would be interesting to study younger heart patients w/o atheralsclerosis who have had to be on the heart lung machine during heart surgery as with me to repair a valve. I don’t have heart disease but certainly experienced a lot of the pump head symptoms for awhile after the surgery.
Age 55. Like Jill, I had zero vascular disease, but a flail valve from an infection. October 2009, I was on the HL pump for nearly 6 hrs during my Mitral valve replacement surgery. For a week immediately after, I was loony, and desperate about it … memory, audio and visual comprehension, today, six weeks later, I’m MUCH better, but still unnerved by that terrifying experience. Now the arguments begin that there’s no such phenomenon. Sounds like the industry is building its own foundation to ward off potential litigation.
I was fully mental functional up until the minute of my surgery. Please don’t tell us the pump head phenom doesn’t exist. In fact, I wish my surgeon had at least given me more of a head’s-up about what I could expect in terms of pump head.