New horizons in the perioperative care of older adults.

Older adults undergoing surgery have high perioperative morbidity and mortality. Age-related physiological changes and prevalence of geriatric syndromes such as frailty increase the risk of adverse postoperative outcomes. Geriatricians utilise comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) and management to identify and manage geriatric syndromes, and deliver patient-centred perioperative care. Perioperative models of CGA are established for older patients undergoing hip fracture surgery. Recent trials support the benefits of perioperative models of CGA for non-orthopaedic surgery, and have influenced current care recommendations for older surgical patients. Areas for further action include addressing the implementation gap between recommended evidence-based perioperative care and routine perioperative care, evaluating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of perioperative models of CGA for patients living with frailty, and embedding routine use of patient-reported outcome measures to inform quality improvement.

Rehabilitation of the older vascular amputee: a review of the literature.

The aim was to review the literature on factors affecting prosthetic rehabilitation of older vascular lower extremity amputees. A search of the literature was carried out using the MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL databases up to September 2010. Only original English language articles were accepted. Relevant studies were reviewed and selected based on prespecified inclusion criteria namely: age more than 65 years; vascular cause for the amputation; amputation level of below knee, through-the-knee or above knee; and discussed factors affecting rehabilitation. Age alone is not an absolute contraindication to prosthetic limb prescription; however, it does influence the potential success of gait retraining. Other factors influencing prosthetic fitting and use include comorbidities, premorbid function, level of amputation, status of the remaining limb and patient motivation. Prosthetic gait retraining is not possible in every older dysvascular amputee; however, almost all amputees will benefit from a rehabilitation program to increase independence in transfers and learn wheelchair skills. The MESH key words were: "aged" "diabetes complications" "peripheral vascular diseases" "amputees" "amputation" "rehabilitation" and "artificial limbs".