[Central nervous system dysfunction in patients with postresuscitation syndrome]

The work discusses the consequences of central nervous system dysfunction occurring in the course of postresuscitation syndrome (postresuscitation disease). Haemodynamic, morphological and metabolic changes in the central nervous system resulting from ischaemia and reperfusion in cerebral vessels have been discussed. Attention has been paid to the irreversibility and progressive character of certain changes in brain tissue initiated at the moment of cardiac arrest. The author also presents trials of management of the postresuscitation disease which have been undertaken so far and which concern pathophysiological mechanisms conditioning the development of brain injury as a result of cardiac arrest, resuscitation procedures and restoration of spontaneous circulation.