| Summary: | Hai-Jun Hou, Fu-Shan Xue, Rui-Juan Guo Department of Anesthesiology, Beijing Friendship Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaIn a preliminary study, Gao et al1 assessed the preventive effect of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) on postoperative delirium (POD) in geriatric patients with silent lacunar infarction. They showed that TEAS could reduce the development of POD and might be related to attenuated neuroinflammation by reducing the permeability of the blood–brain barrier. Given that POD is a common postoperative complication associated with adverse events and outcomes including functional decline, and increased risks of morbidity and mortality in elderly surgical patients, their findings have the potential implications. To differentiate the real effect of one factor on primary endpoint in a randomized trial, however, all of other factors must be standardized for avoidance of potential bias. Other than the limitations described in the discussion, we noted several issues in this study that were not addressed well.View original paper by Gao et al.
|
|---|
