Anaesthesia and pain therapy for geriatric patients

作者：Tacke Sabine^*

来源：Kleintierpraxis, 2012, 57(8): 429-+.

DOI：10.2377/0023-2076-57-429

• geriatric patient
• anaesthesia
• pain therapy
• dog
• cat

Anaesthesia and pain therapy for geriatric patients %26lt;br%26gt;Not only humans, but also dogs and cats are living longer and longer, and this is the reason why more and more geriatric patients have to be anaesthetised or need pain therapy. In addition, even if a geriatric dog or cat is not ill, only old, they still react more sensitively in comparison to younger patients to perioperative changes in homoeostasis and the surgery itself. Additionally, geriatric patients suffer more often from geriatric organ dysfunctions of the cardiovascular, respiratory, renal and hepatic systems. This leads to an impairment of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, which is very important to bear in mind to avoid additional damage to the geriatric patient if they have to be anaesthetised or need pain therapy. Simplified, this means that the effect of anaesthetics and analgesics is lengthened due to prolonged metabolism. As a consequence, the dosage should be reduced and the administration intervals should be extended. Failure to do this is one of the reasons why morbidity and mortality in anaesthetised geriatric patients can increase. The term %26quot;geriatric patient%26quot; is often used if an animal has reached 75-80% of its average breed-specific life expectancy. Nevertheless, in general terms, each patient has to be evaluated individually to see if there is a geriatric condition present or not; the patient itself is not per se geriatric. Newer results have shown that the anaesthetic risk in cats is not so much age-related as in dogs.

• 出版日期2012-8