Alzheimer's Disease and Heart Surgery

Studies Suggest There Could Be a Link

When I think of my grandfather I remember one particularly dry summer in Massachusetts. I went to visit him, even though I knew he would probably not remember who I was. My Grandfather had developed Alzheimer’s Disease after having heart surgery.

My grandmother and I would talk as my grandfather stared at the blue shag carpet from his armchair. She would tell me about how he gets lost and cries, and I’d catch his eyes and give him a smile. He always answered it with a big gorgeous grin that I don’t ever remember seeing before the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. My grandmother would test him on the identity of their visitor. Sometimes my name would escape his dry throat.

My mother was the first to put it together. Ever since the heart surgery, he had not been the same. While we were aware of risk the involved in this major surgery we were not prepared for the accelerated dementia that followed his quadruple bypass.

As far as we were concerned, there could be no denying the connection, but no mention of the risk had been made prior to the surgery. If no correlation had been detected in the past, we wondered how such a connection, so obvious to us, could have gone undocumented. The Link Between Heart Surgery and Alzheimer's

In fact, it hadn’t. In 1997, at the same time as my grandfather’s surgery, a small preliminary study of 65 patients was being conducted at Duke University. According to the report appearing in Science Daily, some degree of neurological damage was known at that time to affect as many as 75 per cent of lung and heart bypass surgery patients.

The damage, which is not typically permanent, was thought to be caused by small blood clots or fragments of plaque that become dislodged during surgery and travel to the brain. The study suggested that patients with the Alzheimer’s gene are more susceptible to the resulting nerve damage. Meanwhile, my family and I watched helplessly as my grandfather began to descend into the grip of dementia. Mentally and physically, he was fading away.

That same year researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine published an article in The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. The study analyzed the medical histories of 5,216 patients who underwent bypass surgery around the same time as my grandfather. Cardiac bypass surgery appeared to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s Disease by 70 per cent.

Is The Link Real?

Almost simultaneously, however, neurologist David Knopman of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota published research in the medical journal Neurology stating that the correlation is unwarranted. Instead of studying exclusively patients who had undergone surgery, he based the study on two groups of patients, one group suffering from dementia and one group without dementia. Working backwards to examine their histories, Knopman concluded that there was no correlation, criticizing other studies on the subject for their lack of a suitable control group.

In December of 2006 my grandfather succumbed to Alzheimer‘s Disease. We had already been saying goodbye to him for years. The year following his death marked an unprecedented surge in Alzheimer’s research. Studies were published linking the disease to diabetes, loneliness, and even suggesting that excessive rumination and conscientious behavior during midlife can reduce the risk.

Whether or not cardiac surgery can be directly responsible for the development of Alzheimer’s Disease, it is clear that cardiovascular health is inextricably tied to mental health. While this information may be of little consolation to those of us who have lost a loved one to Alzheimer’s Disease, heart health is particularly important for those who may be carrying the Alzheimer’s gene, as we are not risking just heart disease but increasing our chances of dementia later in life as well.