Introduction
Post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) is defined as a decrease in cognitive functions which develop following surgery and anesthesia administration that may continue weeks or even months after surgery (1).
POCD clinical signs include psychomotor imbalance, memory loss, dementia, difficulties in fine-motor skills and upper level cognitive dysfunctions (2). Sensitive tests reported that this decline in psychomotor and cognitive functions in those patients following surgery may last from a week to three months and even in some rare cases, up to 1-2 years (3).
Previous studies on non-cardiac surgery patients over 18-age reported POCD incidence rate is between 19-41% (2). This rate may increase to 80% following cardiac surgery (4). In elderly hip replacement surgery patients, this rate is reported to be between 15-60% (5). The most common risk factors for POCD development were reported as advanced age, presence of comorbidities, scale of operation and post-operative pain (6). However, there are no studies in the literature that revealed the effect of prolonged preoperative hospitalization duration on POCD development.
In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect of preoperative hospitalization period on early POCD development and its risk factors in patients undergoing total hip replacement surgery for hip fractures under regional anesthesia.