[A contribution to the psychopathology of patients with open heart surgery (author's transl)]

Abstract

The results of a larger study of psychopathological disorders in relation to pre-operative and post-operative examined heart surgery patients, where the heart-lung machine was used, will be shown, to begin with, on 20 patients. Pre-operative examination showed quite clearly, among other things, that patients suppress obvious operation risks. General mental disorders were seen post-operative in 4 patients, and these were diagnosed as organic psychosis. A comparison between psychotic and other patients shows, among other things, that somatic predictors such as cerebral sclerosis and atrophy, or a cerebral trauma tend to promote post-operative psychosis. A releasing cause could be a cerebral hypoxia brought about by the extracorporeal blood circulation. In our opinion psychological factors can only be found in the contents of psychosis.