Language, memory, and verbal fluency changes in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: results of a preoperative investigation.

OBJECTIVE: To detect changes in speech, verbal fluency, and memory in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) caused by ruptured aneurysms and to analyze the results before surgical or embolization procedure.

METHODS: During the period May 2007 to November 2009, 193 patients with anterior aneurysmal SAH admitted to the Department of Neurosurgery, Hospital da Restauração, Recife, Brazil, were tested for speech, verbal fluency, and memory disturbances after the first week of bleeding and compared with a control group with similar demographics.

RESULTS: Patients with aneurysmal SAH differed significantly from the control group in language, verbal fluency, and memory functions before clipping or coiling procedures. There were differences in cognitive performance between patients with different aneurysm sites.

CONCLUSIONS: It was possible to characterize the cognitive impairments of each area affected early on in the preoperative period, confirming the assumptions that the aneurysm site could be a determining factor of cognitive impairment.