Die Bedeutung des Gesamtzustandes älterer Patienten für Kommunikation, Therapieziele und Komplikationsrisiken und der Nutzen von geriatrischen Assessment Tools

In an increasingly aging society, appropriate evaluation of the overall condition of older and elderly patients most often does not occur in the context of oral and maxillofacial surgery, despite the availability of validated variables and tests to assess the risk of treatment-related complications or mortality. These test procedures, which are included in a comprehensive geriatric assessment, should be regularly applied in older and elderly patients. Particularly important dimensions are vision/hearing, self-care ability, mobility/motor skills, cognition/delirium, depression, social situation, pain, nutrition/dysphagia, continence, sleep, substance misuse/addition. This article describes changes in these dimensions that are associated with aging as well as important tools of geriatric assessments that are often used for their evaluation. Moreover, dementia and postoperative delirium are discussed in detail. Suggestions for integrating these tests into everyday practice are given.