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Intensive Care Unit Cognitive Disorders · Journal article
Cureus · August 23, 2026
Early or partial results. Treat as a signal, not a conclusion.
This is a narrative case report of a patient who survived perioperative cardiac arrest with prolonged resuscitation and developed a progressive pattern of neurologic, cognitive, and visual deficits over nearly a decade. The case illustrates the diagnostic challenge of distinguishing delayed post-hypoxic injury from concurrent neurodegenerative disease, but provides no quantified efficacy data, comparator outcomes, or evidence for any intervention.
Single-patient case report. A woman who survived perioperative cardiac arrest requiring extended resuscitation..
Patient in her 70s and 80s survived perioperative cardiac arrest requiring extended resuscitation Complications included Anton syndrome, prosopagnosia, gait apraxia, and chronic microvascular disease Serial cognitive assessments over nearly a decade showed initial severe impairment, partial recovery, and later persistent moderate impairment
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This case highlights the need for sustained multidisciplinary follow-up after severe anoxic brain injury and the diagnostic complexity of differentiating post-hypoxic delayed neurodegeneration from age-related neurodegenerative disease; it should prompt clinicians to consider extended observation and serial assessment in similar survivors but does not provide evidence for specific interventions or prognosis.
A single-patient case report documenting clinical observations and imaging findings over time, without a comparator, control group, or quantified outcomes—raises diagnostic and prognostic questions but does not test a hypothesis rigorously.
As stated by the source record.
Quoted from the source exactly as published.
This case highlights the need for sustained multidisciplinary follow-up after severe anoxic brain injury and the diagnostic complexity of differentiating post-hypoxic delayed neurodegeneration from age-related neurodegenerative disease; it should prompt clinicians to consider extended observation and serial assessment in similar survivors but does not provide evidence for specific interventions or prognosis.
Graded across the dimensions that decide whether you should act, each from what the source actually supports. There is no single score, and where a dimension was not assessed it says so.
Severe hypoxic-ischemic brain injury following cardiac arrest can result in persistent and evolving neurologic, cognitive, and visual impairment, with later clinical decline that may be difficult to distinguish from superimposed neurodegenerative disease. A prolonged and evolving pattern of neurologic, cognitive, and visual impairment is documented in a woman throughout her 70s and 80s who survived a perioperative cardiac arrest requiring an extended resuscitation interval. Her recovery was complicated by Anton syndrome, prosopagnosia, gait apraxia, chronic microvascular disease with progressive atrophy, intermittent episodes of delirium during superimposed infections, and later neuroimaging findings suggestive of Alzheimer-type degeneration. This case illustrates the dynamic trajectory of severe anoxic encephalopathy, the challenge of differentiating delayed post-hypoxic injury from superimposed neurodegenerative disease, and the need for sustained multidisciplinary care extending well beyond the initial insult. Serial cognitive assessments over nearly a decade further demonstrate the patient’s initial severe impairment, subsequent partial cognitive recovery, and later persistent moderate impairment, while the evolution of the neuroimaging raises the important question of whether the changes found represented chronic post-anoxic injury, Alzheimer's disease, or a combination of both.
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