Perioperative Management of Risk Factors in the Elderly Patients

In 2017, the number of operations on hospitalized patients in China was more than 57 million, of which more than 20 million were performed on elderly patients (≥65 years of age). As of the end of 2017, there were 143 million elderly people over 65 years old in China, of which 26 million people were 80 years old and over, accounting for 1.8% of the country's total population, and this proportion is increasing. More and more elderly patients need surgery. A study showed that compared with the 65-79-year-old population, the probability of myocardial infarction after orthopedic surgery in patients over 80 years of age increased by 2.7 times, the probability of lung infection increased by 3.5 times, and the mortality rate increased by 3.4 times. The inherent risks of surgery and increased postoperative complications in elderly patients are closely related to factors such as senile syndrome. Geriatric syndrome refers to the deterioration of the function of various organ systems as the age increases, and a series of non-specific symptoms and signs appear in the elderly, including weakness, comorbidities, cognitive dysfunction and so on. These symptoms increase with age, seriously impairing the quality of life of the elderly and increasing their perioperative risk. Taking frailty as an example, the incidence of frailty among the 65-70 years old population is 3.2%, 71-74 years old is 5.3%, 75-79 years old is 9.5%, 80-84 years old is 16.3%, and\> 85 years old is 25.1. %. On the other hand, the physical functions of the elderly are constantly degrading with age. Take skeletal muscle as an example. After the age of 50, the skeletal muscle mass decreases by 1%-2% every year with the increase of age. The chronic muscle loss of people over 60 years old is estimated to be 30%, and the elderly people over 80 years old lose up to 50%. It can be seen that the elderly patients are a special group of elderly patients, which have their particularity compared with the low-age elderly gro