Assessment of the Frequency of Cognitive Disorder in Older Patients before and after Surgery in Hamadan Educational Hospitals

Introduction & The high incidence of postoperative delirium (POD) after elective, non-cardiac surgery (4–54%), provides a useful clinical venue to study its relationship to postoperative cognitive and functional impairments Present study was done to assess the prevalence of cognitive disorder in older patients before and after surgery in Hamadan educational Hospitals. In this descriptive-analytic study, 160 old person who referred to surgery wards of teaching hospitals of Hamedan city were assessed during a one-year period (2009-2010). A questionnaire included age, sex, type of surgical operation, type of anesthesia, and duration of anesthesia was fulfilled for each patient. For the assessment of cognitive function, patients were evaluated with MMSE (Mini Mental State Examination) questionnaire before operation (day of admission) and three days after it. In mentioned questionnaire the ideal score is 30, score below 25 indicates probable cognitive impairment and a score below 20 indicates definite cognitive impairment. The mean age of the studied patients was 75.40 ± 5.80. Most of these patients were males in an age of range 71 to 75 years (67.5%). Pre-operative MMSE score was higher than 25 in 75.6% of patients; 20 – 25 in 16.9% of patients and below 20 in 7.5% of patients. After operation this score was higher than 25 in 52.5% of patients; 20 t0 25 in 28.8% of patients; and below 20 in 18.7% of patients. There is a significant difference between the percentage of patients who had pre-operative score below 20 and the patients who had score below 20 after operation (P