Background:
Cardiac arrest is a significant public health problem, impacting over 500,000 people in the United States annually. The four major etiologies of arrest are cardiac, respiratory, traumatic, and other. The objective was to determine the impact of etiology on cognition in cardiac arrest survivors using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA).
Hypothesis:
Cardiac arrest etiology impacts cognitive exam score, and patient demographics and characteristics modify that relationship.
Methods:
A retrospective cohort analysis was performed on all Pittsburgh Post Cardiac Arrest Service (PCAS) patients from 2012-18. Data were acquired through medical record review. T-tests, linear and logistic regression were used to assess the relationships between exam score and modifying factors. MOCA score was analyzed as a binomial variable using a pass/fail threshold of 26/30 points (86.7%) and above for normal cognition. For statistical significance, an alpha level of 0.05 was used.
Results:
In total, 192 patients completed the MOCA: 104 with cardiac etiology, 35 with respiratory, 4 with trauma, and 49 with other. Median age for all patients was 59.3 years, and 58% were male. Mean (SE) MOCA score for all patients was 72.8 (1.1) percent. When MOCA score was converted to a binomial indicator of normal cognition, respiratory, traumatic, and other etiologies were more likely to exhibit impairment than cardiac etiology arrest when age, sex, witnessed status, length of ICU stay and coma were controlled for (OR: 2.52, 3.43, 2.18 respectively). These findings were nullified when time from arrest to MOCA administration was included. Of the MOCA subcategories, delayed recall was the most severely impacted, with patients recalling an average of 1.67 of 5 words after 5 minutes. Additionally, respiratory arrests performed significantly worse than cardiac etiology arrests in attention (4.1 vs 4.9 points, p=0.004) and language domains (1.9 vs. 2.3, p=0.04).
Conclusions:
Respiratory, traumatic, and other etiologies were more likely to exhibit abnormal cognition on the MOCA than those with a cardiac etiology. The etiological findings were nullified when time to cognitive examination was controlled for. Timing appears to influence cognitive assessments more than etiology.
Using the Clerkship Shelf Exam Score as a Qualification for an Overall Clerkship Grade of Honors
