“Is anesthesia safe for the elderly?”
My grandfather is 70 year old, and he will have a surgery under general anesthesia. I'm just worried about him being out that long. Is the anesthesia safe for elderly?
1 Answer
That question is difficult to answer without knowing first, what your grandfather’s overall health status is, and second, what operation he is scheduled to have and for what problem.
Assuming your grandfather is relatively healthy (perhaps he takes meds for high blood pressure, cholesterol, and an enlarged prostate) and the surgery is low to moderate risk, he should easily tolerate a general anesthetic. Even with high risk surgery (major vascular surgery, brain surgery, lung surgery, coronary artery bypass surgery, major bowel surgery) the risk of the surgery would likely be higher than the anesthesia-related risk.
However, if your grandfather is chronically ill with severe medical disease, like kidney failure, heart failure or heart rhythm disturbances, or lung problems like asthma or moderate to severe emphysema for which he takes meds every day, then his anesthesia-related risks are higher overall. Of course his anesthesiologist needs to know about his functional status and medical history in order to be able to determine the safest anesthesia plan for the kind of surgery he is going to have. We find that the pre-operative functional status of a patient is the best predictor of problems during surgery and afterwards. By functional status I mean how well the patient gets around, and how well the patient cares for himself (i.e. does he need a lot of help to manage day-to-day, does he need assistance for activities of daily living, does he live at home or in a nursing home, what is his level of cognitive function).
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Assuming your grandfather is relatively healthy (perhaps he takes meds for high blood pressure, cholesterol, and an enlarged prostate) and the surgery is low to moderate risk, he should easily tolerate a general anesthetic. Even with high risk surgery (major vascular surgery, brain surgery, lung surgery, coronary artery bypass surgery, major bowel surgery) the risk of the surgery would likely be higher than the anesthesia-related risk.
However, if your grandfather is chronically ill with severe medical disease, like kidney failure, heart failure or heart rhythm disturbances, or lung problems like asthma or moderate to severe emphysema for which he takes meds every day, then his anesthesia-related risks are higher overall. Of course his anesthesiologist needs to know about his functional status and medical history in order to be able to determine the safest anesthesia plan for the kind of surgery he is going to have. We find that the pre-operative functional status of a patient is the best predictor of problems during surgery and afterwards. By functional status I mean how well the patient gets around, and how well the patient cares for himself (i.e. does he need a lot of help to manage day-to-day, does he need assistance for activities of daily living, does he live at home or in a nursing home, what is his level of cognitive function).
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