Main description:

This issue of Anesthesiology Clinics, edited by Dr. Elizabeth Whitlock and Dr. Robert Whittington, in collaboration with Consulting Editor Lee Fleisher, focuses on Geriatric Anesthesia. Topics in this issue include: The Growing Challenge of the Elderly Population; The Perioperative Period; Preoperative Assessment of the Geriatric Patient; Prehabilitation: Optimizing Elders Undergoing Elective Surgery; The Ethics of Surgery at the End of the Life; Perioperative Geriatric Physiology and the Frailty Syndrome; Geriatric Pharmacology; Emergency Surgery in the Elderly; Management of Acute Pain in the Elderly; Special Considerations for the Elderly Brain: Delirium and Perioperative Cognitive Change; Special Challenges of the Geriatric Critical Care Patient; Chronic Pain Management in the Elderly; Providing Patient- Focused Care: Treatment Burdens, Difficult Conversations, and Symptom Management; and Future Directions for Geriatric Anesthesiology.