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Odour identification as a marker for postoperative cognitive dysfunction: A pilot study *
Author(s) -
Rentowl P.,
Hanning C. D.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.839
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2044
pISSN - 0003-2409
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2044.2004.03678.x
Subject(s) - medicine , postoperative cognitive dysfunction , dementia , cognition , disease , identification (biology) , cognitive deficit , cognitive decline , risk factor , cognitive impairment , psychiatry , botany , biology
Summary The onset of postoperative cognitive dysfunction is delayed in some elderly surgical patients and the condition may persist. Increasing age is a risk factor for both postoperative cognitive dysfunction and dementia. Major surgery may unmask an underlying dementia; we report findings of a pilot study designed to inform this hypothesis. Impaired odour identification ability is a characteristic of the preclinical phase of some neuro‐degenerative diseases. This pilot study was designed to establish whether odour identification deficit is a marker for postoperative cognitive dysfunction, particularly in elderly patients genetically predisposed to develop late‐onset Alzheimer's disease. We found no association between odour identification ability and postoperative cognitive dysfunction in 53 patients aged 62–86, undergoing major non‐cardiac surgery under general anaesthesia. Our pilot study showed that a high number of patients genetically predisposed to develop Alzheimer's disease is required to test the utility of odour identification as a marker for postoperative cognitive dysfunction.