Anxiety does not up risk of post-surgery delirium

Older patients often suffer delirium after heart surgery, but this seems to be unrelated to pre-surgery anxiety and depression, according to a new study. "Delirium is a common psychiatric complication after cardiac surgery," note Dr. Koen Milisen, of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and colleagues. "Special attention" must be paid to delirium after heart surgery, because the syndrome is associated with poor outcomes, including higher rates of post-surgery complications, longer hospital stay, and higher death rates, they say. In a long-term study involving 104 elderly patients admitted for heart surgery, Milisen's team found that 27 patients, or 26 percent, suffered postoperative delirium for a median of 2 days - Source: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, December 2008.