Each issue features
a motivating topic from Maggie’s recently published
book, The Open
Heart Companion: Preparation and Guidance for Open-Heart
Surgery Recovery (Open Heart Publishing,
June 2006). My selection of a topic for this month
is taken from Chapter 10, "More
on the Jagged Progress Forward."
The book’s Table
of Contents, leading surgeon and cardiologist
endorsements, and ordering information is on the
website: www.openheartcoach.com/TheBook.html. |
|
Lingering
Cognitive Challenges after Heart Surgery
While making great efforts to complete
your physical assignments every day—to balance
walking, resting, napping, stretching, eating and socializing—you
may well be grappling with mental irritants as well.
In a recent article entitled “Heal the Heart, Hurt
the Mind?” Judy Foreman writes that, possibly due
to hooking up open-heart surgery patients to a heart-lung
machine, some patients “find that their brains
don’t function as well as they did before. These
effects can dissipate in a few days or continue for months
[or, more likely in older patients] for years” (Foreman, Los
Angeles Times, October 4, 2004).
The culprit? Although it is suspected,
Foreman continues, it is not clear that the cause
is the patient’s time spent on the heart-lung machine.
The “pump head” theory she’s referring
to postulates that “when the heart is stopped during
surgery . . . small blood clots, air bubbles and other
debris” are “traveling to the brain and disrupting
memory.” In recent years, some cardiac surgeons have
become advocates for off-pump heart surgery, which is now
used in 22 percent of coronary bypass procedures.
Foreman
quotes Dr. John Puskas, an associate professor in the division
of cardiothoracic surgery at Emory University in Atlanta,
as saying, “I think it’s clear that off-pump
is better, but proving it with scientific rigor is challenging”;
a study from Johns Hopkins that Foreman also cites found
no difference in patients’ cognitive outcomes that
could be attributed to whether they’d had their surgery
on or off the pump. The point is, for each of us, open-heart
surgery recovery is going to have its strenuous moments.
Through the early weeks at home, a great portion of the
challenge may be mental and/or psychological, not just
physical.
Thoughts on scheduling surgery and caregiver
attention once the heart patient is home:
Hi Maggie, We were fortunate to
have the opportunity of when we could schedule my husband's
open heart surgery. We chose September. It was an ideal
time here in the Northeast -- the weather was still
warm enough to enjoy time outside. At first my husband
was reluctant to venture beyond the doorway but with
gentle prodding from me he took his first steps outside
only 2 weeks after surgery! Those warm sunny days were
the best medicine. 3
weeks after his surgery we were able to walk near the
ocean. Understand that those first few walks were very
slow and very short but the ocean breezes were remarkably
beneficial. We even brought picnic lunches so that my
husband would not feel as if he had to rush home to eat.
Anyone who has the good fortune to be able to schedule
when their open heart will be done should consider time
of year. If his surgery had to have been done in winter
it would have been far more difficult since recovery
would have had to take place indoors. I think summer
would be equally difficult with the weather being too
hot or humid.
It is also vitally important that the open heart
patient have someone who is virtually on-call 24/7
for those first few weeks. It would be nice
if there were some sort of database where anyone without
this support could search for a companion close by
who would be willing to live with them during this
initial period of recovery.
I hope my comments are of help to anyone facing heart
surgery.
— Jan,
Providence, RI
A good recovery report and a happy wedding
anniversary to celebrate:
Maggie, Had 5 bypass surgery in
Aug. Doing great; Monday, on our way
to Hawaii for vacation. Glad I am having a good recovery.
PS Made my 70th birthday in Jan.
Will spend our 48th wedding anniversary in Hawaii. Best
— Steve,
Simi Valley, CA
Feedback Request
Please email me at Maggie@openheartcoach.com with
your observations and experiences which will be informative
to others for future issues of Heart
to Heart. Please
include your name, city and state. Please also
tell me what else you would like to see covered in
this monthly newsletter. Thank
you!
Free Monthly Heart Surgery PHONE
SUPPORT Group
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patient?
Please consider joining my free monthly
heart surgery support group for both caregivers and patients.
It is by telephone for one hour on a teleconference
line that we all call into.
Our next call is
Tuesday, June 10.
For a complete description and to
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