The relationship between cognitive performance and employment and health status in long-term survivors of the acute respiratory distress syndrome: results of an exploratory study.

Survivors of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are at risk for long-lasting cognitive decline due to hypoxemia, sepsis and/or psychological sequelae associated with aggressive supportive care in the intensive care unit (ICU). We conducted an exploratory study to assess cognitive performance in long-term survivors of ARDS and to investigate how cognitive functioning is related to employment status and health-related quality of life (HRQOL). At median time of 6.0 years after ICU discharge, forty-six ARDS survivors were tested with SKT, a short cognitive performance test for assessing deficits of memory and attention. A measure of HRQOL (SF-36 Health Status Questionnaire) was also administered, and in a brief psychiatric interview, employment status was rated. 23.9% (n=11) of the patients showed cognitive impairments. However, no extreme and severe cognitive deficits were recorded. They primarily revealed low levels of cognitive function in various tasks assessing attention skills. Disability was found in 41.3% (n=19) of the patients. All ARDS survivors with cognitive deficits were disabled, whereas only 22.9% (n=8) of the cognitively not impaired patients gave evidence of disability. The SF-36 values of the ARDS survivors indicated impaired health status on seven out of eight domains when compared to normative population data. Patients with cognitive deficits described the lowest HRQOL with major limitations in the domains role-physical and social functioning when compared to patients without cognitive impairments. In conclusion, long-term ARDS survivors exhibit impaired health status and the presence of cognitive deficits is associated with disability and considerable impairments in HRQOL. More detailed psychiatric research is required to establish the etiology of these cognitive impairments.