Concerns Over Going Under the Knife
Study:Â Advancing Age Increases Risk of Complications Post-Surgery
University of Washington researchers say that as we age, our risk for complications from surgery increases. That doesn't have to be the case, so long as you prepare and recover from surgery the right way.
Many moons ago (well, really only two years but it seems like a long time ago), I wrote an article about surgery and the importance of going into it with your eyes wide open. In other words, going into the surgery firm in the knowledge that the surgery is absolutely necessary and going into the surgery mentally and physically prepared for the toll it puts on the body.
If you haven’t read it, do so, because what you don’t know can hurt you.
I say that because according to a new report published in the December issue of Archives of Surgery, the older a person is, the more likely it is that that person will have serious health complications in the aftermath.
Researchers from the University of Washington’s School of Medicine reviewed the paperwork of over 101,000 people that had abdominal surgeries performed on them between 1987 and 2004. All of the procedures were done on people over the age of 65. Oh, and all of the surgeries performed were necessary procedures (e.g. hysterectomies, cholecystectomies, colectomies) not elective abdominal surgical procedures like bariatric surgery, for example.
What they were really looking for in these procedures was not what kind of surgery that was performed or how long they took, but if any complications arose. For the most part, they didn’t, but when they did arise, they tended to be in the elder years (90 and over) rather than the “early” years (65-69).
For example, for people in the 65-69 age bracket, the likelihood that they’d have health complications 90 days after the surgery was 14 percent. But in people 90 and over, the complication rate was about 23 percent. That’s almost one in four! For every four-year age bracket, the risk of complication increased about 1.5 percent.
While the death rate was not as high as the complication rate, risk assessment was again a function of age (65-69 years = 9 percent; 90 and older = 17 percent).
Researchers think this link is due to the elderly not being able to recover as quickly from surgery as those younger than them. But they also say that it’s a function of their inability to adapt to the stress of surgery.
I can almost guarantee you that the death and complication rate would have been much lower had they been better prepared for it. In short, prepared in a way that I outlined just two years ago: with the proper nutrients and foods pre-surgery, the proper nutrients and foods post-surgery, and hypnotherapy to increase healing.
If you or someone you love is in their latter years and is preparing for surgery, please pass along this column of mine to them. It could very well wind up saving their life.
Source:
sciencedaily.com
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Posted: December 29th, 2009 under Surgery.
Tags: before surgery, complication surgery, surgery recovery
