KNYGA Paolo Carcoforo Geriatric Surgery

This open access book on Geriatric Surgery is an invaluable resource for healthcare professionals managing elderly surgical patients. It provides essential guidance to improve patient outcomes, optimize surgical decision-making, and enhance perioperative care. Older adults often have multiple comorbidities, altered physiological responses, and increased surgical risks. This manual equips surgeons and clinicians with evidence-based protocols to minimize complications such as infections, delirium, and poor wound healing. It also highlights best practices in prehabilitation, anesthesia considerations, and postoperative recovery strategies tailored to elderly patients. Surgical decision-making in geriatric patients is complex due to factors like frailty, cognitive impairment, and life expectancy. This well-structured manual outlines risk assessment models, such as the Frailty Index and Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA), ensuring a patient-centered approach that balances surgical benefits against potential risks. Modern geriatric surgery relies on collaboration between surgeons, anesthesiologists, geriatricians, physiotherapists, and dietitians. Our manual facilitates this teamwork by providing integrated care pathways, nutritional guidelines, and rehabilitation protocols to improve recovery and reduce hospital stays. For medical trainees and general surgeons, this geriatric surgery manual serves as an educational tool to understand the unique challenges of operating on older adults. It includes case studies, clinical algorithms, and practical recommendations that enhance their skills and decision-making abilities. By implementing best practices, hospitals can reduce complications, ICU admissions, and readmissions, ultimately cutting healthcare costs while improving patient quality of life. In summary, this geriatric surgery manual is crucial in providing structured, evidence-based guidance for optimizing surgical care in older adults, leading to better outcomes and more efficient healthcare delivery.