Anesthesia related cognitive decline, specifically dysnomia

Pam @pb50, You provided an excellent description of the changes you've experienced. Was your surgery very recent? From what you wrote I figure the surgery occurred within the last month or two.

My partner had surgery in both hands for Dupuytren's contracture. The surgeries were a few years apart. He had a nerve block for the first surgery. For the second surgery the nerve block did not "take" so the anesthesia was converted to a general anesthesia. This is a good discussion to have with your hand orthopedic surgeon given your experience with the pulmonary surgery.

Before I retired much of my scholarly work was in the area of cognitive function in older adults. I might add that I started this work when I was in my 30's and now I am one of those "older adults" at age 71. General anesthesia indeed can and does affect the retrieval of words. As you know it is common as we get older to have difficulty retrieving proper names such as the names of people or places or titles. However, I'd like to validate that you've described a word retrieval difficulty that is not typical. I was often frustrated with neurologists and other physicians who passed off these word retrieval difficulties following general anesthesia. After all, if the surgery was successful for say, open heart surgery or the lung surgery that you experienced then their work is done with the exception of the followups.

You've received some good advice here from @windyshores and @casey1329 who suggest that it can take months for naming function to return. In the meantime I'd like to make a suggestion. If you aren't already doing this, you could chart your observations each day. This could get laborious if you chart every naming difficulty you experience so perhaps just chart with a scale of 0-5 on the difficulty you experience each day with 0 being no difficulty and 5 being extremely difficult. If you have a column for a few examples then that's even better. I have found that when I have written records that I can bring to my physician they are often very willing to take a serious look through my charts.

One last question. When you have the naming difficulty, can you bring to mind the first sound (letter), or the number of syllables of the word? If you let the word "go" does it come to you later? If the answer is yes, then this means that you have retrieved the word but it's "stuck" in the lexical (vocabulary) stream and it's on the "tip of your tongue". That's also good information which means that the word isn't lost but rather stuck.

OK - perhaps this is too much information or detail. I'm very happy for you that your lung nodule was followed closely and eventually removed. Will you let me know about the progress of your recovery?

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@pb50
I had 3 different surgeries January 2022 through July 2023 and have noticed cognitive decline, worsening brain fog and depression plus personality changes. I am 54 years old and now not able to work due to my cognitive and physical challenges (have 3 degrees and was working in a mentally challenging job). I certainly wasn’t planning to stop working at this age (a single parent of a teenager with no child support or extended family). Unfortunately, older women are often dismissed and I have experienced disrespect and bias. They often just chalk everything up to hormones, menopause and depression/anxiety and throw you prescriptions for antidepressants rather than digging deeper on the source of the problems. When we notice changes, we should be taken seriously and listened to. It is hard to do when you are not feeling well. We shouldn’t have to fight so hard to get care needed. The healthcare system is broken and there is so much waste with limited positive outcomes. Most doctors (not all) are not preventative or proactive and seem to forget to treat patients to improve their overall quality of life. We are healthcare customers who pay a lot but are not treated as such and not getting what we are paying for.

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@pb50, thank you for thinking of me. I am hanging in as best I can as everything seems to be slowing down for me in functioning in life (like my batteries are draining and nothing is being recharged).
I love that you still have a sense of humor despite your many health challenges. You made me laugh this morning so thank you! 😃 Your dream made me think of my own experience with many doctors on a “lazy Susan” or a game of chance or blindfolded game of darts. We are spun around in our healthcare system and there is a lot of busyness but not a lot of improved health outcomes or quality of life for patients. Everyone wants to give you antidepressants and more medication as a bandaid to send you away without solving anything. We get so many tests but I question why when many doctors ignore abnormal results. I looked back at some of my 7 years of medical notes and records and see things now that should have been taken more seriously or looked at more closely. For example, I found multiple EKGs that show “infarct, old” and left ventricle hypertrophy. I also looked at rheumatologist bloodwork from 2017 and 2019 which showed autoantibodies for Lupus, Thyroid and Antiphospholipid syndrome and the doctor said nothing about this to me. He said I didn’t have RA/Lupus and sent me away with no referrals or follow up recommendations. I have lost time to address the autoimmune attack in my body and my health is significantly declining. I went to my new neurologist a couple days ago and they are doing a brain MRI to rule out MS and other changes that may be behind cognitive/vision/hearing changes. The neurologist also wants me to go to a rheumatologist to dig deeper into the anti phospholipid and lupus autoantibodies. I have been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s and hypothyroidism after having lobectomy due to suspicious nodule. It takes way too long to get diagnosed with autoimmune diseases while your body and quality of life deteriorates. I will continue to try to find things to laugh about since humor makes life more fun! 🙂

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@dlydailyhope
I find that I'm lousy at entertaining myself, but if I use my experience to create humor for someone else’s benefit, I indirectly benefit myself.

Where do you live if you don't mind saying? I know some great
Rheumatologists around the country.. maybe I could help.

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I agree with you. The current healthcare system is broken. Many practicing physicians these days don't have time to spend with their patients. The companies they work for set time limits for patient appointments. Doctors don't have the time needed anymore to provide quality care. Medical care has become a money making operation for doctors, hospital administrators, medical supply companies etc etc. Sadly, the bottom line in medicine now is money not quality of patient care. Sad situation we are in nowadays. I am hoping the introduction of AI into the medical field may help improve patient outcomes.

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