Abstract
Cognitive impairment and dementia are common with advancing age. As our population ages a larger number of older adults will undergo surgical procedures requiring anesthesia. While patients with a diagnosis of dementia are less likely to undergo elective surgery and anesthesia, a growing body evidence demonstrates that surgery and anesthesia are more common in older adults when compared to younger adults and children. Interestingly, 20–44% of older patients presenting for elective surgery have undiagnosed probable cognitive impairment that may put them at risk for adverse perioperative outcomes. Accordingly, the detection of probable cognitive impairment is important as it allows for time in the preoperative period for patient and family counseling, identification of surrogate decision-makers, and potential modification to intraoperative and postoperative care to enhance patient centered outcomes. There are several tools available to detect probable cognitive impairment in the preoperative period. This chapter describes the prevalence of preoperative cognitive impairment; its relationship to postoperative outcomes and reviews some of the screening tools that can be used to detect cognitive impairment in older patients.
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Gleason, L.J., Susano, M.J., Culley, D.J. (2018). Preoperative Cognitive Assessment in Older Adults. In: Rosenthal, R., Zenilman, M., Katlic, M. (eds) Principles and Practice of Geriatric Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20317-1_10-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20317-1_10-1
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