Congenital heart disease (CHD) can affect the developing central nervous system, resulting in neurocognitive and behavioral deficits. Preoperative neurological abnormalities as well as sequelae of the open heart operations required to correct structural abnormalities of the heart contribute to these deficits. There are few studies examining the neurocognitive functioning of adults with CHD. This study sought to investigate multiple domains of neurocognitive functioning in adult survivors of CHD who had childhood cardiac surgery with either moderate or severe disease complexity.
A total of 48 adults (18-49 years of age) who had undergone cardiac surgery for CHD prior to five years of age participated in the study. CHD severity was classified as moderate or severe according to the 32nd Bethesda Guidelines. A computerized battery of standardized neurocognitive tests (CNS-Vital Signs), a validated rating scale of executive functioning, and demographic questionnaires were administered.
There were no significant differences between the moderate CHD group and normative data on any cognitive measure. In contrast, the severe CHD group differed from norms in multiple domains: psychomotor speed, processing speed, complex attention, reaction time, and on the overall neurocognitive index. Number of surgeries was strongly related to worse executive functioning. There was no association between age at first surgery or time since last surgery and neuropsychological functioning. Number of surgeries was also unrelated to neurocognitive test performance.
Patients with severe CHD performed significantly worse on measures of processing speed, attention, and executive functioning. These findings may be useful in the long-term care of adults with congenital heart disease.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 July 2022.
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#9,822,116
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#133
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#102,126
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Outputs of similar age from Congenital Heart Disease
#5
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Altmetric has tracked 33,779,198 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 604 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 3.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 77% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its contemporaries.
