Mohammed T. Abou-Saleh

748 PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF GERIATRIC PSYCHIATRYCONCLUSIONWhile the great majority of older people undergoing surgery andanaesthesia will emerge without any cognitive sequelae, absoluteguarantees cannot be given. Indeed, since the last edition of thisbook, the previous consensus that routine anaesthesia per se hadessentially no long-term effect on postoperative function has beenchallenged by large carefully designed studies. It is to be hopedthat the ISPOCD2 study and similar large-scale investigations willallow us to give more authoritative advice to older patientsundergoing surgery in the first decade of the twenty-first century.REFERENCES1. Seymour DG, Rees GAD, Crosby DL. Introduction—demography,prophylaxis, surgical diagnosis, pathophysiology, and approach toanaesthesia. In Crosby D, Rees G, Seymour DG, eds, The AgeingSurgical Patient: Anaesthetic, Operative and Medical Management.Chichester: Wiley, 1992; 1–90.2. Lipowski ZJ. Delirium: Acute Confusional States. 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