Why the study?
Does age (elderly vs young adults) affect the time to achieve pre-oxygenation and safe duration of apnoea?
Does age (elderly vs young adults) affect the time to achieve pre-oxygenation and safe duration of apnoea?
End-tidal oxygen concentration monitoring is equally useful as an end point for pre-oxygenation in both elderly and young adult patients.
End-tidal O2 monitoring remains a valid pre-oxygenation endpoint across ages; leaves open age effects on apnoea tolerance in broader populations.
Using an end-tidal fractional oxygen concentration of 0.9 as an end point for pre-oxygenation, we have compared the time taken to achieve this end point and the safe duration of apnoea after induction of anaesthesia following pre-oxygenation in elderly patients and young adults. The times taken to reach the end point of pre-oxygenation and for the oxygen saturation to decrease to 92% during a period of apnoea were found not to be significantly different between the two age groups. It is concluded that in spite of the physiological changes that occur with age, end-tidal oxygen concentration monitoring is as useful in the elderly population as in young adults as an end point for pre-oxygenation.
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Bhatia et al. (1997) studied this question.
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