Finally, growing awareness of chemotherapy-induced cognitive deficits

Brain activ­i­ty changes seen after chemo (Reuters):

“For some women with breast can­cer, changes in brain activ­i­ty while mul­ti­task­ing could explain “chemo brain” – reduced men­tal func­tion­ing that many expe­ri­ence after chemother­a­py, Bel­gian researchers say. “Cog­ni­tive com­plaints of peo­ple increase with chemother­a­py and we are try­ing to find out why,” said Sabine Deprez, who led the new study. “Dif­fi­cul­ty mul­ti­task­ing is one of the biggest complaints.”

Past research has doc­u­ment­ed changes in men­tal per­for­mance fol­low­ing chemother­a­py – and in some cas­es, in can­cer patients before chemother­a­py, sug­gest­ing dis­ease-relat­ed process­es may also play a role, accord­ing to Deprez’s team…“As we advance our under­stand­ing of which patients are at great­est risk, hope­ful­ly we will be able to per­son­al­ize med­ical treat­ment to min­i­mize cog­ni­tive risks while still effec­tive­ly treat­ing the can­cer,” McDon­ald said.

Relat­ed articles:

• Mea­sur­ing and treat­ing Chemo Brain
• Should Hos­pi­tals Mon­i­tor, and Work to Main­tain, Patients’ Cog­ni­tive Function?
• Info­graph­ic on the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020