Postoperative care and analgesia

Author(s):  
Chris Dodds ◽  
Chandra M. Kumar ◽  
Frédérique Servin

There are many reasons for delayed recovery, but, usually, it is due to residual effects of anaesthetic agents/premedication. There are guidelines for recognizing and managing these cases. Emergence delirium may be dangerous, and it should be recognized and treated as an emergency. Elderly patients may have impaired hearing and vision. Spectacles and hearing aids should be given back to them as soon as possible in the recovery area to limit disorientation. Pain and its intensity may be difficult to recognize and quantify in the elderly. Increased inter-individual variability in the elderly means that titration to effect rather than a fixed dosage is essential, and when the mental status of the patient allows it, patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) is quite appropriate.

Author(s):  
Bernadette Veering ◽  
Chris Dodds

The elderly population continues to grow. As surgical intervention in disease processes becomes more aggressive, the anaesthetist is faced with an increasing number of elderly patients. Elderly patients should be approached with a clear understanding of ageing, how it occurs, how it affects specific organ systems, and how it may influence clinical care, when a patient is subjected to an operation. The ageing process is a multifactorial process, resulting in a decreased capacity for adaptation and producing a gradual decrease in functional reserve of many organ systems. This has significant effects on the physiological responses to surgical and pharmacological trespass faced during anaesthesia. Increasing age is associated with changes in the response to a wide variety of drugs. Changes in dose–response relationships may be as a result of changes in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, or a combination of both. One should realize that increasing age is associated with a large inter-individual variability in dose requirements. As such, it is important to carefully titrate the dose against the desired clinical effect in an older patient. Preoperative physical and mental state are the most important determinants of per- and postoperative morbidity and mortality. The number of co-morbidities increases with advanced age and as such, optimization of the medical condition is essential to reduce the morbidity and mortality.


2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry E. Humes ◽  
Carolyn B. Garner ◽  
Dana L. Wilson ◽  
Nancy N. Barlow

This study reports the results of a large number of hearing-aid outcome measures obtained from 173 elderly hearing-aid wearers following one month of hearing-aid use. All participants in this study were fit binaurally with identical full-concha in-the-ear (ITE) hearing aids having linear Class-D amplifiers with output-limiting compression. Outcome measures included several measures of speech recognition, as well as several self-report measures of hearing-aid performance, benefit, satisfaction, and use. Comparison of mean data from this sample of hearing-aid wearers to other larger sets of data, obtained previously for several of these measures of hearing-aid outcome evaluated in isolation, indicated that the participants in this study were representative of the participants in other largerscale studies. Subsequent principal-components factor analysis of the data from this study indicated that there were seven distinct dimensions of hearing-aid outcome. Attempts to document the effectiveness and efficacy of hearing aids for elderly persons with impaired hearing will be most complete when assessing performance along all seven dimensions of hearing-aid outcome. Clinically efficient procedures for doing so are discussed.


2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-26
Author(s):  
R VIDALPEREZ ◽  
E ABUASSI ◽  
M PARAMODEVEGA ◽  
P VELOSO ◽  
A VARELAROMAN ◽  
...  

MedPharmRes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Truc Phan ◽  
Tram Huynh ◽  
Tuan Q. Tran ◽  
Dung Co ◽  
Khoi M. Tran

Introduction: Little information is available on the outcomes of R-CHOP (rituximab with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone) and R-CVP (rituximab with cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisone) in treatment of the elderly patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), especially in Vietnam. Material and methods: All patients were newly diagnosed with CD20-positive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) at Blood Transfusion and Hematology Hospital, Ho Chi Minh city (BTH) between 01/2013 and 01/2018 who were age 60 years or older at diagnosis. A retrospective analysis of these patients was perfomed. Results: Twenty-one Vietnamese patients (6 males and 15 females) were identified and the median age was 68.9 (range 60-80). Most of patients have comorbidities and intermediate-risk. The most common sign was lymphadenopathy (over 95%). The proportion of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) was highest (71%). The percentage of patients reaching complete response (CR) after six cycle of chemotherapy was 76.2%. The median follow-up was 26 months, event-free survival (EFS) was 60% and overall survival (OS) was 75%. Adverse effects of rituximab were unremarkable, treatment-related mortality accounted for less than 10%. There was no difference in drug toxicity between two regimens. Conclusions: R-CHOP, R-CVP yielded a good result and acceptable toxicity in treatment of elderly patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In patients with known cardiac history, omission of anthracyclines is reasonable and R-CVP provides a competitive complete response rate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 1466-1472
Author(s):  
Grażyna Kobus ◽  
Jolanta Małyszko ◽  
Hanna Bachórzewska-Gajewska

Introduction: In the elderly, impairment of kidney function occurs. Renal diseases overlap with anatomic and functional changes related to age-related involutionary processes. Mortality among patients with acute renal injury is approximately 50%, despite advances in treatment and diagnosis of AKI. The aim: To assess the incidence of acute kidney injury in elderly patients and to analyze the causes of acute renal failure depending on age. Materials and methods: A retrospective analysis included medical documentation of patients hospitalized in the Nephrology Clinic during the 6-month period. During this period 452 patients were hospitalized in the clinic. A group of 77 patients with acute renal failure as a reason for hospitalization was included in the study. Results: The prerenal form was the most common cause of AKI in both age groups. In both age groups, the most common cause was dehydration; in the group of patients up to 65 years of age, dehydration was 29.17%; in the group of people over 65 years - 43.39%. Renal replacement therapy in patients with AKI was used in 14.29% of patients. In the group of patients up to 65 years of age hemodialysis was 16.67% and above 65 years of age. -13.21% of patients. The average creatinine level in the group of younger patients at admission was 5.16 ± 3.71 mg / dl, in the group of older patients 3.14 ± 1.63 mg / dl. The size of glomerular filtration GFR in the group of younger patients at admission was 21.14 ± 19.54 ml / min, in the group of older patients 23.34 ± 13.33 ml / min. Conclusions: The main cause of acute kidney injury regardless of the age group was dehydration. Due to the high percentage of AKI in the elderly, this group requires more preventive action, not only in the hospital but also at home.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
José M. Pascual ◽  
Ruth Prieto

Classifying CPs within the overly vague, uninformative category “suprasellar” prevents gaining any true insight regarding the risks associated with the surgical procedure employed. Routine MRI obtained with conventional T1- and T2-weighted sequences along the midsagittal and coronal trans-infundibular planes allow an accurate and reliable preoperative definition of CP topography. CPs developing primarily within the infundibulum and/or tuberal region of the hypothalamus, as well as those wholly located within the 3V, should be distinguished preoperatively from those lesions originally expanding beneath the 3V floor (3VF), the true suprasellar tumors. Among adult patients, about 40% of CPs correspond to infundibulo-tuberal tumors expanding primarily within the 3VF, above an intact pituitary gland and stalk. This subgroup of CPs shows strong adherences to the surrounding hypothalamus, as they are embedded within a wide band of reactive gliotic tissue, usually infiltrated by microscopic finger-like solid cords of tumor tissue. In elderly patients, a significant proportion of CPs correspond to papillary tumors developing above an intact 3VF, usually showing small pedicle-like or sessile-like attachments to the infundibulum. With the current diagnostic MRI workup routinely employed for CPs, it is possible, for the majority of lesions, to preoperatively differentiate these topographical variants and predict the type of CP-hypothalamus relationship that will be found during surgery.


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