Best Practices for Postoperative Brain Health: Recommendations From the Fifth International Perioperative Neurotoxicity Working Group.

The objective of this workshop was to discuss and develop consensus solutions to improve patient management and outcomes and to discuss what older adults should be told (and by whom) about postoperative brain health risks. Thus, the workshop was provider and patient oriented as well as solution focused rather than etiology focused. For those areas in which we determined that there were limited evidence-based recommendations, we identified knowledge gaps and the types of scientific knowledge and investigations needed to direct future best practice. Because concerns about perioperative neurocognitive injury in pediatric patients are already being addressed by the SmartTots initiative, our workshop discussion (and thus this article) focuses specifically on perioperative cognition in older adults. The 2 main perioperative cognitive disorders that have been studied to date are postoperative delirium and cognitive dysfunction. Postoperative delirium is a syndrome of fluctuating changes in attention and level of consciousness that occurs in 20%-40% of patients >60 years of age after major surgery and inpatient hospitalization. Many older surgical patients also develop postoperative cognitive deficits that typically last for weeks to months, thus referred to as postoperative cognitive dysfunction. Because of the heterogeneity of different tools and thresholds used to assess and define these disorders at varying points in time after anesthesia and surgery, a recent article has prop...

Source: Anesthesia and Analgesia - October 9, 2018 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Berger M, Schenning KJ, Brown CH, Deiner SG, Whittington RA, Eckenhoff RG, Angst MS, Avramescu S, Bekker A, Brzezinski M, Crosby G, Culley DJ, Eckenhoff M, Eriksson LI, Evered L, Ibinson J, Kline RP, Kofke A, Ma D, Mathew JP, Maze M, Orser BA, Price CC, S Tags: Anesth Analg Source Type: research