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Guidance Aims to Reduce Delirium in Older Adults After Surgery

A surgeon on an operating room The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) will release a new practice advisory in 2025 for older adults scheduled for inpatient surgeries surrounding the cognitive and other complications of anesthesia common in older patients.

The ASA newsroom released a press release Recommendations May Help Reduce Delirium in Older Patients Having Surgery regarding the new 2025 practice advisory that focuses on care preoperatively, intraoperatively, and postoperatively. The advisory is focused on patients 65 and older who are more at risk of developing delirium after surgery.

Read the 2025 American Society of Anesthesiologists Practice Advisory on Perioperative Care for Older Adults Undergoing Inpatient Surgery

This article falls under Clinical/Patient Safety in the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) risk domains.

Risks associated with the delivery of care to patients, residents and other health care customers. Clinical risks include: failure to follow evidence based practice, medication errors, hospital acquired conditions (HAC), serious safety events (SSE), health care equity, opportunities to improve safety within the care environments, and others.