Studying Recent Memory in Patients before and after Regional Anesthesia

Background: Memory has an important role in our social life. General anesthesia has long been known to negatively affect the recent memory. It is also necessary to study the recent memory changes upon regional anesthesia. Methods: This study is cohort, before-after type, which was accomplished at Imam Khomeini hospital. The recent memory was evaluated before and after regional anesthesia using Wechsler memory scale-revised V. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS 25 software to calculate median, mean, standard deviation and p-value. Results: 220 women and 180 men with an average age of 42.7 years old were interviewed, among which 248 patients had accompanied diseases and/or history of former surgeries. It was found that recent memory function reduces upon regional anesthesia. Moreover, different aspects of memory do not exhibit similar extent of sensitivity to anesthesia; logical memory and number repeat reduced pronouncedly. Conclusion: Regional Anesthesia causes recent memory loss and cognitive disorders.