Background
Post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) is a spectrum of clinical syndrome presenting as emergence delirium (ED) and/or post-operative delirium (POD). POCD is described as deterioration of memory, comprehension and attention in the postoperative period. There is sparse data on ED and POD after neurosurgery. Previous studies have several limitations such as small sample size and retrospective nature of these studies. Moreover, neurosurgical patients are vulnerable for POCD because of the coexisting preoperative delirium and also the alteration of intracranial homeostasis secondary to cranial surgeries. Hence it was necessary to prospectively study the incidence of POCD in a large neurosurgical population undergoing different types of surgeries for various intracranial pathologies.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to establish a neurosurgical cohort of POCD and identify the incidence of ED and POD in a large neurosurgical population.
Methods
This is a single-center prospective observational cohort study. Exposed study subjects are patients having cranial surgery and non-exposed are those having non-cranial or spinal surgery. Development of ED, POD or both will be the expected outcome in this study. To find out the association of sixteen risk factors with development of POCD, two thousand patients will be recruited over a three years period.
Funding
Department of Science and technology
