Elderly care anaesthesia is a tip of an iceberg. It may seem simple at the outset, yet so complex. Elderly patients are not very different from babies. They can be shrunken and underweight. They all can have some degree of memory loss though a formal diagnosis of dementia would not have been made. They can be frail with lots of comorbidities like IHD, DM, COPD, Strokes and Renal disorders.
Trauma is a major factor in their morbidity and mortality. Most of them are under nursing home care. Most of the trauma happen due to falls and the commonest traumatic fracture in elderly patients is fracture neck of femur. Lot of my work is involved with treating patients for hip fractures. They can be presented for DHS, Hemiarthroplasty or THR. Pre-anaesthetic assessment and pre-optimisation play a major role in the successful delivery of a safe and effective anaesthetic and good post-operative…
