Clock-Drawing Test as a Bedside Assessment of Post-operative Delirium Risk in Elderly Patients with Accidental Hip Fracture

What is it about?

We report findings of an applied research with roots in every day practice, i.e. the need to have a quick and easy to administer tool to preoperatively gauge the risk of delirium following surgical intervention, namely hip repair surgery. Age has been acknowledged as a risk factor, while hip fracture itself has an increasing incidence in aging population. The currently applied cognitive tests for assessing the risk of postoperative delirium require time and specialized medical staff, in addition to the patients' mental strain.

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Why is it important?

To our knowledge, the novelty of this report consists in employing the four-point scoring Clock-Drawing Test as a bedside tool for assessing the risk: each additional point in the test decreases the odds of post-surgery delirium by a 6.54 ratio, for patients similar in age, gender, presence of delirium on admission, MoCA visual, and MoCA attention.

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