Preoperative Prediction of Postoperative Delirium

• Published in: JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 271; no. 20; p. 1573
• Main Author: Carson, Richard C
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Medical Association 25-05-1994
• Subjects: Anesthesiology; Delirium - etiology; Humans; Postoperative Care; Postoperative Complications - epidemiology; Probability
• ISSN: 0098-7484; 1538-3598
• DOI: 10.1001/jama.1994.03510440033015

To the Editor.—I wish to thank you for publishing "A Clinical Prediction Rule for Delirium After Elective Noncardiac Surgery" by Dr Marcantonio and colleagues.1No doubt you will receive correspondence criticizing the research for not including an anesthesiologist among the 14 authors of this article. Others may also be critical of the exclusion of any references from the anesthesiology literature in this study in which all of the 1341 patients studied had received anesthesia.However, I personally am grateful for this article. Since I can now identify the "appropriate candidates for interventions" with "[s]trategies [that] include close monitoring and correction of perioperative hypoxemia, hypotension, fluid and electrolyte balance, and severe anemia," I can rest much easier when I turn off the oxygen, ignore the blood pressure, and walk off down the hall to have coffee when patients I anesthetize do not need these "interventions."