Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie
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Elderly patients often suffer from postoperative cognitive deficits (POCD) after serious surgical operations. The reasons for this are not well understood. We investigated the influence of the invasiveness of the operation and the duration of the operation as well as the patient's preoperative physical status on measures of cognitive dysfunction. ⋯ In addition, the duration of anesthesia influenced the experienced deficits. The self-reported deficits were more strongly influenced by the features of the operation than the psychological test data. The physical status of the patients according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) along with the duration of anesthesia as covariate was identified as a good predictor for the cognitive recovery post operation.