Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Running on Empty - August 2019 - Subscribe to Outpatient Surgery Magazine

Outpatient Surgery Magazine, providing current information on Surgical Services, Surgical Facility Administration, Outpatient Surgery News and Trends, OR Excellence and more.

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tain a normal sleep cycle and healthy diet, and return to physical activity as soon as possible. A greater under- standing The exact mecha- nisms that cause post- op delirium are still unknown, but patients with preexisting cogni- tive dysfunction (both mild and severe), functional disability and sev- eral comorbidities are more likely to experience severe forms of the condition. Importantly, benzodiazepines, sometimes used to calm patients before surgery, are shown to increase the risk of post-op delirium. In many ways, post-op delirium is a public health crisis as it has a larger mortality and morbidity burden than we once thought. Tools are available to aid in risk assessment and prevention. We now need to use those tools and partner with our clinical care team, patients and their families to reduce the debilitating symptoms of delirium and optimize surgical recoveries. OSM Dr. Lindroth (hlindrot@iu.edu) is a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana School of Medicine and the Center for Health Innovation and Implementation Science in Indianapolis specializing in delirium prevention in the perioperative setting. A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 1 1 1 • REORIENT Encourage patients to bring their glasses, hearing aids and dentures on the day of surgery so they can reorient themselves following surgery.

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