Can Major Surgeries Cause a Long-Term 'Brain Drain'?

Before any surgery, you typically hear warnings about risks like bleeding and infection, but new research suggests that problems with thinking or memory can often follow a major procedure.

The study found that people who had surgery had an increased risk of a small, long-term decline in cognitive function years later. Cognitive function is your ability to think, reason and remember.

After surgery, folks had nearly twice the risk of developing "substantial" cognitive decline during the two decades of the study.

But there's no need to panic, the researchers added.

"Our data suggest that, on average, major surgery is associated with only a small cognitive 'hit,' and while there was a doubling in the risk of substantial cognitive decline, this only affected a small number of patients," said senior study author Dr. Robert Sanders. He's an assistant professor in the department of anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.

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