THE EFFECT OF CHRONIC HYPOXIA ON THE CENTR AL NERVOUS SYSTEM OF CHILDREN WITH CYANOTIC CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE

Due to advanced treatments in the field of heart disease, cyanotic heart disease patients have a greater chance of survival, and nowadays many of them live until adolescence or middle age. One of the signs of this disease is blood hypoxia, which has acute and chronic effects on the CNS. In this paper the effect of chronic hypoxia on children affected by cyanotic congenital heart disease (CHD) is evaluated. For this purpose children aged five to eleven years were divided into three major groups: cyanotic CHD, acyanotic CHD and normal. Then they were compared according to points achieved on the Visual Motor Gestalt Test, which established their intelligence and mental superiority. The average value of cyanotic CHD (mean± SD, 11.78±4.54) in all age groups was less than the other two groups. Furthermore, the average values of acyanotic CHD children (mean± SD, 8.97±4.04) were less than the normal subjects (mean± SD, 6.6±4.18). Statistically, the difference of means between the values of these three groups was significant in all age groups except for the five and nine year old groups. The statistical insignificance of the values for 5 and 9 year old groups was due to the high variance of normal group point values in these two age groups. The effects of other influencing factors such as the job and education of parents, number of children in the family and the relative filial position of the child in his family were considered. As a result of this study, we have established that patients with CHD especially cyanotic patients-have a considerable amount of intelligence retardation which the cardiologist and surgeon can prevent or minimize by shortening the period of hypoxia with rapid correction.