Introduction
Anaesthesia is a strain on the body at any age. With older people, however, special things have to be considered when planning the anaesthesia. On the one hand, older people also have more secondary diseases that have to be included in the planning of anesthesia.
The same applies to any medication they take. Furthermore, older people have a higher risk of suffering from temporary confusion after the operation. In medical terminology, this is known as a postoperative delirium.
What are the special features?
In older people, anaesthesia can involve completely different risks than in younger people. Therefore, before every operation, it should be considered whether the benefits of the operation outweigh the risks, or whether there are also gentler procedures that can possibly lead to the same result. Elderly people often have a number of secondary diseases that need to be treated with medication. Therefore, it is important during anaesthesia planning to see which medications need to be discontinued, replaced or added before the operation. Furthermore, the heart and lung function must be examined before the anaesthesia to make sure that the body can withstand the stress of an operation and that ventilation is ensured.
What are the risks?
Due to the fact that hardly any elderly person is completely healthy, the secondary diseases can become problematic for anaesthesia. Especially diseases of the cardiovascular system or diabetes are to be mentioned. People with these diseases have more frequent complications during anesthesia.
A further risk arises from the fact that important protective reflexes are cancelled by the anaesthesia. It can then happen that stomach contents rise and are inhaled. If stomach contents are in the lungs, this can lead to pneumonia.
That is why it is just as important to fast before an anaesthetic in order to keep this risk as low as possible. If the dental status of elderly people is in need of rehabilitation, there is a risk that the teeth may be injured when inserting the respiratory cue. This happens rather seldom, but the risk is increased with bad teeth.
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