Many people who have heart bypass surgery will have sharp declines in memory and other mental functions that can last for years, a new study finds.

About half of all people who have the operation, have a steep drop in mental abilities right after the surgery, but doctors hadn't known until now whether that drop was short-lived.

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Following 261 patients who had the operation, a group at Duke University Medical Centre reports that 42 percent of them had measurable declines in those functions five years later.

"The two most common effects are on memory and on visual-spatial orientation," says Dr Mark F Newman, chief of cardio thoracic anaesthesia at the medical centre.

But a number of measures are being taken to tackle the problem, Newman says, because "physicians are recognising the importance of protecting the brain in this kind of surgery."

 

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