<story><title>Long-term risks of surgery: ‘It gives people’s brains a hard time’</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/24/the-hidden-long-term-risks-of-surgery-it-give-peoples-brains-a-hard-time</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nicolas_t</author><text>My father had a significant cognitive decline after two surgeries within 6 months of each other (Cardiac Ablation). The second surgery resulted in septicimia so the inflammation is  definitely a factor but both me and my mother also noted decline after the first surgery.&lt;p&gt;It was very obvious in term of decline, my father had trouble with doing some tasks on his computer (when he never did before having been an early adopter and programming some educational software for schools in the 80s), he no longer could concentrate enough when reading and became more extreme in his politics (he went from voting from the parti socialiste and being mostly center left to being very left wing). He also had less control over his emotions and would sometimes explode in a rage unlike anything he had before.&lt;p&gt;He himself felt diminished mentally and that greatly bothered him during the last years of his life.&lt;p&gt;On my side, I&amp;#x27;ve refused general anaesthesia as much as I can because it scares me deeply. When I was a kid, I had an operation under general anaesthesia and I woke up with a very strong asthma attack, completely unable to breathe. Reading this, it does give argument towards my stance to asking for local anaesthesia as much as possible.</text></comment>
<story><title>Long-term risks of surgery: ‘It gives people’s brains a hard time’</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/apr/24/the-hidden-long-term-risks-of-surgery-it-give-peoples-brains-a-hard-time</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>snek_case</author><text>This article suggests that inflammation in response to the surgery is the problem, but as far as I know, anesthesia itself is very dangerous. It can reduce the amount of oxygen the brain is getting for several hours, and if the brain doesn&amp;#x27;t get enough oxygen, neurons can die. Some of the cognitive changes following anesthesia could be brain tissue death due to the anesthesia itself. Careful dosage and monitoring is required, and you should probably get local anesthesia if possible.&lt;p&gt;Anesthesia kills brain cells, but what does it mean?
&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5119529&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5119529&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>