Skip to main content
  • Poster presentation
  • Open access
  • Published:

Neurosurgery and quality of life in elderly people

Background

Elderly are fixed arbitrarily which are over the 65th year of age, without correlation between chronological and biological age.

Elderly represent in the last years the largest part of population in modern society.

In the EU 20% of population are more than 65 years old, with the same percentage in U.S.A.

The number of elderly is increased dramatically because the children that were birth after the 2nd World War, a season that is characterized as “a season of explosion of births” now is approached the 65th year of age. There is increase of average of life at the same time. Also the number of elderly who needs surgical interventions in the last years has been increased too. Approximately half number of them will need surgical intervention.

Age does not constitute contraindication of surgical intervention, when there are guarantees of sufficient care before intervention with safe anaesthesia and knowledge of the anatomic changes in the elder persons with better results.

Materials and methods

The aim of our study is to emphasize the particularities as well as the problems that are presented in third age people when they are nursing in neurosurgical department. In our department at last ten-year period (1997 - 2007) in total of 4500 entrances, 3104 (68,98 %), they concerned on patients of third age, 1374 women (44,27 %) and 1730 men (55,73 %).

Results

The average of age was 74,3 (with breadth 65-105 years old). The 96,5% had: diabetes, hyphenation, atherosclerosis, lipedemia, circulatory - respiratory problems, thyroids, brain tumors, hydrocephalus, cerebrovascular diseases, craniocerebral injuries etc. In our presentation analyzed: the individual diseases that led people to neurosurgical department, the permanence in that and the final result.

Conclusions

1. There is an increase number of neurosurgical interventions in the elderly.

2. Neuerosurgical interventions are more common in men.

3. Individual diseases in elderly are a common situation when they need neurosurgical intervention.

References

  1. Zenilman ME, Hardin RE: Surgery in the elderly: the evolving role of palliative care in general surgical practice. Adv Surg. 2004, 38: 55-65. Review

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Σύρμος N., Kαπουτζής N., Tελεβάντος A., Kαπουτζής Π., Σύρμου E., Σύρμος X.: Αντιμετώπιση κρανιοεγκεφαλικών κακώσεων σε επαρχιακό νοσοκομείο. Η εμπειρία του Γενικού Νοσοκομείου - Κέντρου Υγείας Γουμένισσας Νομού Κιλκίς. Perspectives in neurosciences (Τιμητικός τόμος προς τιμήν του Καθηγητού Αγαπητού Διακογιάννη). Έκδοσις της Ελληνικής Εταιρείας δια την βελτίωσιν της ποιότητος ζωής των χρονίως νευρολογικών. Σμλ. 543-550. Θμσσαλονίκη 2005.

  3. Zenilman ME, Hardin RE: Surgery in the elderly: the evolving role of palliative care in general surgical practice. Adv Surg. 2004, 38: 55-65.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Severs MP, Wilkins PS: A hospital palliative care ward for elderly people. Age Ageing. 1991, 20 (5): 361-4. 10.1093/ageing/20.5.361.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Nikolaos, S., Konstantinos, G., Vasilios, V. et al. Neurosurgery and quality of life in elderly people. Ann Gen Psychiatry 7 (Suppl 1), S237 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-7-S1-S237

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-7-S1-S237

Keywords