Recently there was an article in the Times News paper about a study carried out by French Researchers. They selected 9000 people over the age of 65 and found that within a decade 632 developed dementia. Out of this number they noted that 22.3% had received a general anaesthetic and 18.7% had not. They were going to present a paper at a conference in Barcelona to say that older people who had received at least one general anaesthetic were 35% more likely to develop dementia.

Although some feel that the link was a little vague, it is worth remembering that the elderly patients do carry some risk during gen. anaesthesia. This topic may need further research and study.

(This topic is also posted in General Topics)