COLUMBUS, Ohio (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Right after any surgery that requires anesthesia, it’s normal to feel groggy or out of sorts. But as we age, the risk increases for a serious post-operative condition known as delirium. In fact, up to 50 percent of all seniors who undergo surgery may be agitated or have cognition problems as they recover. But can a structured program of brain games before surgery make an impact after?
For Sarah Sieling this is more than just a game of solitaire.
“I had surgery because I had a pinched sciatic nerve,” said Sieling.
That surgery required Sieling to be under general anesthesia. But several weeks beforehand, she began training her brain.
“The idea was that an active mind is a protected mind,” explained Michelle L. Humeidan, MD, PhD, an anesthesiologist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
Dr. Humeidan gave patients iPads with a commercially available brain game app already loaded. She asked patients to play the games an hour a day for a total of ten hours or more before surgery.
“There were word games and number games and hand and eye coordination games,” shared Sieling.
“You’re exercising your brain, your neurons, your neuro function. So Neurobics is where that term came from. And we decided to run with that,” continued Dr. Humeidan.
Researchers found the patients who did their Neurobics were forty percent less likely to have post-operative delirium. And the results improved the more hours patients played. Humeidan said along with Neurobics, she recommends patients take these steps before surgery: stay hydrated, remain active and take a walk every day, read every night, and pick up a hobby.
“I always enjoyed this part because there’s embroidery on it,” Sieling stated.
For Sieling Sieling, embroidery and quilting help her stay focused.
“I didn’t want to have hallucinations or whatever after the surgery. I had never heard of that, but I didn’t want to have that to happen to me,” Sieling said.
Researchers say future studies will look at exactly how the Neurobics affect the brain and will also look to determine how many hours of brain games will help patients get the full benefits.
Contributors to this news report include: Cyndy McGrath, Producer; Bob Walko, Editor; and Kirk Manson, Videographer.
NEUROBICS: BRAIN GAMES PREVENT POST-OP DELIRIUM
REPORT #2882
BACKGROUND: Delirium happens when a person has sudden confusion or a sudden change in mental status. The person may have trouble paying attention or thinking clearly and may act disoriented or distracted. Delirium requires treatment and often hospitalization. It is not a disease, but rather a changed mental state. Delirium and dementia have some similarities but are not the same. Delirium mostly affects a person’s attention, where dementia affects memory. Delirium is a temporary state that begins suddenly, where dementia is chronic, or long-term, confusion that usually begins gradually and worsens over time. However, someone can have both delirium and dementia.
(Source: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15252-delirium)
RISKS AND SIGNS: Age plays a role in the development of delirium, but the severity of the current illness, the patient’s normal level of day-to-day function, and the overall health of the patient play a part as well. Those at risk can be elderly and older adults; individuals with dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or another type of mental health disorder; individuals with depression; surgery patients; and patients with longer hospital stays. Before a patient begins to show signs of delirium, there is an earlier phase that patients can experience for hours or even days prior. During this time frame, patients may report extremely vivid dreams, difficulty sleeping, a heightened state of fear or anxiety that wasn’t present before and may start to request the constant presence of another in their room. There is no test for delirium, and it cannot be diagnosed through lab work. It must be diagnosed by observing the behavior of the patient and determining if their behavior fits the diagnosis of delirium.
(Source: https://www.verywellhealth.com/delirium-what-you-should-know-3156864)
NEUROBICS AIDS IN RECOVERY: A study by researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center finds the brain can be prepared for surgery just as the body can. Experts call this “neurobics”: brain exercises designed to create new neural pathways and increase cognition. To study the effects of neurobics on delirium prevention, researchers gave 251 pre-surgical patients over the age of 60 a tablet loaded with a brain-game app and asked them to play an hour of games each day for 10 days leading up to a major procedure requiring general anesthesia. “Not all patients played the games as much as we asked, but those who played any at all saw some benefit,” said Dr. Michelle Humeidan, an anesthesiologist at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center and lead author of the study. “Patients who practiced neurobics were 40 percent less likely to experience postoperative delirium than those who did not, and the results improved the more hours they played.” Those who played five to ten hours cut their risk by more than half, and those who played the prescribed ten hours or more had a 61 percent reduction in delirium rates compared to the control group.
* For More Information, Contact:
Amy Colgan, Public Relations
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