Perioperative anesthesia issues in the elderly

More elderly patients are expected to have surgery and anesthesia in the future because of the population increase and also because aging increases the likelihood that a person will require an operative procedure. Although surgery in the elderly is not without risk, morbidity and mortality have decreased substantially. With coexisting disease as the more important predictor compared with chronologic age, identification of these causes of postoperative morbidity is an important part of preoperative care. Opportunity to improve perioperative outcomes in the elderly will become a reality when these risk factors can be modified and studied in prospective clinical trials looking at the effect on postoperative morbidity.