Identification of Cognitive Impairment in Cardiovascular Rehabilitation: A Pilot Cross-Sectional Study

Aims Cardiac Rehabilitation (CR) is a multidisciplinary intervention for people after an adverse cardiac event to improve their physical, psychological and social functioning. The risk factors of cardiac disease and dementia are similar. This cross sectional study aims to determine whether adding memory assessment to a CR program would improve early detection of cognitive impairment. Therefore, the research question is- “Can adding a memory assessment to the cardiac rehabilitation program improve early detection of cognitive impairment in people with cardiac disease?”. Methods Study ethical approval was granted by Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee (reference 20/YH/0146) and the NHS Health Research Authority (project reference 273763). The Lancashire & South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust accepted the role and responsibilities of study sponsorship. Participants underwent cognitive screening and the data obtained was divided into: - 1- History of memory problems before and after the adverse cardiac event. 2- No memory problems before but presents after. 3- No memory problems before and after. Results During the study period, 48 participants who were at the cardiac rehabilitation program expressed their interest to patriciate in the study. Out of 48 participants who expressed their interest in participating in the study, 30 of them did not engage beyond expressing their interest and 18 out of 48 completed the assessment. The studied sample was categorized into three groups according to the relation between the onset of the cognitive decline and the onset of the cardiac condition: those with no history of cognitive decline (22.2%), cognitive decline following the onset of the cardiac condition (27.8 %) and cognitive decline before and after the onset of the cardiac condition (50 %). Comparing the number of the participants in the studied sample who has history of cognitive decline revealed that there was statistically significant difference between the number of participants who have history of cognitive decline and the other group which demonstrated no decline in their cognitive function (p = 0.031). On correlating medications variables with all domains of cognitive functions assessments done by using ACE-III, we found that participants who are taking statins as regular medications had higher mean scores for visuospatial subtest than the other group of participants who are not taking statins and this difference was statistically significant (p = 0.012). Conclusion This study indicate that CR could potentially enable early detection of cognitive impairment, which could be either reversible or irreversible. However, a longitudinal study of larger scale is required for proper implementation of cognitive assessment in cardiac rehabilitation.