This and the following six pages highlight some of the functional changes in cognition, memory, emotions and personality, physical symptoms, and vision that commonly occur with CO poisoning.
Definition: Neurocognitive operations that initiate and maintain purposeful, goal-directed behavior and enable adaptation to a range of environmental changes and demands as they unfold in time. It is primarily Frontal (brain) Lobe mediated.
Note: - Determination of neuropsychological deficits has only been possible during the past several decades, since neuropsychology is a young science. Previously patients were examined only by physicians, such as neurologists, who had inadequate tools with which to discover and to quantify such deficits. A patient poisoned by CO might go through the remainder of his life in an impaired state, all the while being declared normal by examining physicians.
Credit: - Thanks to Dennis Helffenstein, Ph.D. for development of this material.