Surgery in an Elderly Patient

A review was made of 62 operations in the elderly patients over the age of 65 years from 1972 to 1974. Seventy-seven percent of the patients were female. Twenty-eight operations were done to the femoral neck or trochanteric fractures. Internal fixations were ordinary done to the trochanteric fracture and the primary prosthetic replacements were performed in 11 cases out of 15 of the femoral neck fracture. Preoperative condition revealed hypertension in 18 patients, in whom cardiac disturbance was 5 and 27 patients had some pathologic ECG. Postoperative complication was urinary infection in 11, acute renal insufficiency, paralytic ileus and serum hepatitis in 2, respectively. No postoperative thromboembolism was observed.