Long-term cognitive impairment after critical illness

Long-term cognitive impairment after critical illness. New england journal of medicine 2013; 369:1306-1316.

Pandharipande, P.P., et al.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1301372

Survivors of critical illness often have a prolonged and disabling form of cognitive impairment that remains inadequately characterized. We enrolled adults with respiratory failure or shock in the medical or surgical intensive care unit (ICU), evaluated them for in-hospital delirium, and assessed global cognition and executive function 3 and 12 months after discharge with the use of the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (population age-adjusted mean [±SD] score, 100±15, with lower values indicating worse global cognition) and the Trail Making Test, Part B (population age-, sex-, and education-adjusted mean score, 50±10, with lower scores indicating worse executive function).