Predictors of Low Risk for Delirium during Anesthesia Emergence

Area of Science:

• Anesthesiology
• Neuroscience
• Medical Technology

Background:

• Processed electroencephalography (EEG) shows potential for predicting delirium post-anesthesia.
• Current methods for analyzing EEG emergence trajectories are not easily adaptable for real-time prediction.
• A need exists for a simple, low-resource method to identify patients at high or low risk for delirium.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an easily applicable method for differentiating patients at high versus low risk for delirium.
• To identify specific EEG patterns during anesthesia emergence associated with low delirium risk.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a single frontal EEG channel from 169 patients undergoing general anesthesia.
• Calculation of total and spectral band power and linear regression to determine the slope during anesthesia emergence.
• Correlation of EEG power slope with the occurrence of delirium.

Main Results:

• 19% of patients (32/169) developed delirium.
• Diminishing total EEG power during emergence was associated with a lower likelihood of delirium.
• A positive slope in total and alpha/beta band EEG power correlated with a higher delirium risk ratio.

Conclusions:

• An easily applicable method using a single frontal EEG channel was developed.
• Decreasing EEG power during emergence is a specific indicator for patients at low risk for delirium.
• This method facilitates the identification of patients at low risk for delirium.