Aides to Bill Clinton last week vehemently denied speculation that the former president's intemperate remarks on the campaign trail were due to mild cognitive damage from his quadruple-bypass surgery in 2004.
"This theory is false and is flatly rejected by President Clinton's doctors, who say he is in excellent shape. . . ." the statement said.
But the condition dubbed "pump head" or "bypass brain" has long been recognized by doctors, even if they seldom warn patients about it.
Symptoms include short-term memory loss, slowed responses, trouble concentrating and emotional instability. In a landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2001, researchers at Duke University Medical Center tested 261 patients before and after bypass surgery and found that 53% of them had significant cognitive decline when they were discharged — and 42% still suffered from it five years later.
—Melinda Beck, "'Bypass Brain': How Surgery May Affect Mental Acuity," The Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2008
More than half of heart bypass patients awoke with cognitive problems, ranging from a stroke to the inability to remember phone numbers, according to a 2001 study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Though surgeons have worked to reduce the risks of brain damage, the expanding baby-boomer population leaves Galloway and others concerned that more operations on older patients will lead to increased numbers of people with "bypass brain."
—Robert Davis, "Doctors debate merits of brain-oxygen monitor," USA Today, January 30, 2008
And then there is the condition known as "
bypass brain." That's where brain cells are killed due to the lack of oxygen to the brain during a critical part of the surgery.
—Wiliam Kelley Eidem, "
Rebuttal to 'Quackwatch',"
misc.health.alternative, September 4, 2006
