Perioperative management of the geriatric patients requires knowledges about changes associated with aging physiology and its relation to surgery and anesthesia.
Only experienced anesthetists can evaluate patients effectively and plan for their perioperative care to minimize complications.
Comprehensive preoperative evaluation of an elderly individual's health status can be a very challenging aspect, especially for the young anesthetist.
This makes it difficult to adequately assess the patient's ability to respond to the specific stresses associated with surgery.
Normal aging results in changes in cardiac, respiratory, and renal physiology, and the response of the elderly patient to surgical stress is often unpredictable.
[6] The Society for the Advancement of Geriatric Anesthesia (SAGA) is dedicated to improving the care of the older patient coming to surgery.