Different Frailty Scores to Incidence of Post-operative Delirium and Cognitive Dysfunction

Increasing life expectancy has led to increase in elderly populations, thus the elderly patients amounting for greater proportion of surgical cases. But, most of them are frail with multiple co-morbidities and are exposed to adverse outcome post-operatively. The commonest adverse outcomes is post-operative delirium (POD) in which clinicians often miss and often take lightly. If it is not treated, it will progress to post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD).

So, it is crucial to identify the risk factors pre-operatively to minimize the risk of POD and POCD. The frail patients are more likely to have pre-existing cognitive impairment with reduced cognitive reserve, hence, they are the most vulnerable to POCD and POD. One of the most commonly used frailty screening tools is Fried Frailty criteria which is an easily accessible tool that mainly screens and scores the patients physically. However, the investigators propose to use the Groningen Frailty scale as it can assess the patients in a more holistic approach, not only in physical, but also vision, heating, nutritional, co-morbidities, cognition, psychosocial and mobility of the patients.

Method:

Elderly patients >65 years old undergoing elective surgery under general or local anaesthesia in University Malaya Medical Centre will be recruited for this study, over a 6 months period from August 2019 to January 2020. Patients will be assessed with baseline cognitive assessment, nutritional status, psychological status, and frailty scores prior to the surgery. After the operation, patients will be assessed using 4AT and CAM for at least 5 days or until patients discharged. Cognitive functions will be assessed on post-operative 7th day, 1 month and 3 months with T-MOCA via phone.

All data will be analyzed using SPSS.

Impact of research:

A suitable frailty assessment tool will be identified to be used pre-operatively for elderly patients undergoing elective surgery. This tool will then be incorporated into a guideline and reference in our local setting for geriatric peri-operative management protocol.

Moreover, with the results, investigators hope to create awareness within our multidisciplinary care of elderly surgical population on frailty assessment and its correlation to post-operative delirium, cognitive dysfunction and associated poor outcomes.

Inclusion criteria

• Age 65 years old and above
• ASA 1 - 3
• Full GCS
• Elective surgery
• Able to communicate well
• Consented
• Extubated at the end of surgery

Exclusion criteria

• Cardiac and neurosurgery
• On drugs affecting the central nervous system
• Admission to ICU intubated to continue ventilation.
• Refusal of consent
• Severe hearing loss
• Unable to use telephone/ mobile phone for communication