Cognitive and functional competence after anaesthesia in patients aged over 60: controlled trial of general and regional anaesthesia for elective hip or knee replacement.

Objective: To determine the influence of general or regional anaesthesia on long term mental function in elderly patients.

Design: Prospective study of patients randomly allocated to receive general or regional anaesthesia.

Setting: The patients' homes and a large teaching hospital in Cardiff.

Pulmonary embolism in the elderly.

A retrospective study was made of a consecutive series of patients over 65 years of age diagnosed as having a pulmonary embolus by either ventilation-perfusion lung scan or at necropsy. No clinical features were particularly helpful in making the diagnosis though signs of deep-vein thrombosis were present in 35%. Anticoagulants were well tolerated by all patients to whom they were prescribed.

Pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin in the elderly.

The pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin, administered orally as a 250-mg tablet were compared in 10 young (age 20-30 years) and 10 elderly (age 60-73 years) healthy volunteers. The time to peak serum concentrations was about 80 min in both age groups, although the maximum concentration attained was significantly greater in the old (1.7 mg/l) than the young (1.