Anesthesia and cognitive impairment

Perioperative neurocognitive disorder (PND) is a major life-challenging complication in the perioperative period and its incidence ranges from 15% to 50%. Considering that older age is a risk factor for PND and that the global proportion of people aged 60 and above will increase from 12% in 2015 to 22% in 2050, its incidence will probably further increase. While physicians seem to be more and more aware about this condition, PNDs still are often misdiagnosed and remain a challenge for anesthesiologists and surgical staff.

Nevertheless, the raised recognition of PND's role is challenging the current clinical practice, with an increased attention to preoperative conditions of frailty and to intraoperative anesthesia monitoring, using for example processed EEG signal, to avoid both conditions of intraoperative over (toxicity) or under (awareness) treatment.

In order to recognize the anesthesiologists’ efforts to improve management of PND in recent years, we have published a BMC Anesthesiology collection called “Anesthesia and cognitive impairment”.

This collection comprises submissions from all aspects of this developing field including, but not limited to:

•    Identifying risk factors for PND
•    Strategies to mitigate PND development
•    Optimising anesthesia  or postoperative care plan
•    Use of EEG signal to prevent or predict PND
•    Pathogenesis of PND

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