Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction: An Updated Review

Post operative Cognitive Dysfunction is a condition that follows immediately after a major surgery or any other serious health ailment.It shows significant clinical and social impact on the patient that may often result in either death or impairment, disabling the individual to enter into the job market.While 30% to 40% of postoperative patients, particularly elders are affected immediately after getting discharged from the hospital, 5% to 12% of patients are affected after three months.The origin and the reasons for POCD are not clearly known and there are no universally acceptable evidence based management strategies to cope with this emergency.There is no consensus among experts across the globe on how to treat these kinds of disorders and the definition for the Post Operative Cognitive Dysfunction is missing in the existing literature, leading to further confusion.This article attains importance as tries to analyze the most recent theories of pathogenesis and the risks that may follow Post operative Cognitive Dysfunction by reviewing articles published on this subjects for the past 60 years, starting from 1955 to 2014 in PubMed and Google Scholar and suggests relevant measures on how to cope with it.