The Potential Value of Prehabilitation for Preventing Delirium in Elective Surgery for Aneurysms of the Abdominal Aorta

Objective: Delirium is a common and serious postoperative complication in elderly patients undergoing abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair and is associated with a variety of adverse outcomes. Multimodal prehabilitation aims to identify and minimize potential risk factors for delirium and improve overall health. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of multimodal prehabilitation on delirium incidence in elderly patients undergoing elective repair for AAA.
Methods: A single-centre cohort analysis was performed in the Netherlands for patients aged ≥ 70 years, undergoing elective repair for AAA (open surgery and endovascular aortic repair). Prehabilitation was gradually introduced between 2016 and 2019 and offered as standard care from 2019. The program was constructed to optimize overall health and included delirium risk assessment, home-based tailor-made exercises by a physical therapist, nutritional optimization by a dietician, iron infusion in case of anaemia and a comprehensive geriatric assessment by a geriatrician in case of frailty. The primary outcome was incidence of delirium within 30 days after surgery.
Results: A total of 81 control and 123 prehabilitation patients were included. A reduction in incidence of delirium was found (11.1% in the control group to 4.9% in the prehabilitation group), with too small numbers to reach statistical significance (p=0.09). Also, patients in the prehabilitation group had a small, non-significant decreased length of hospital stay (4 days) compared to the control group (5 days) (p=0.07).
Conclusion: Although no significant differences were found, we carefully conclude that this study provides some support for implementing multimodal prehabilitation for delirium prevention in elderly patients undergoing AAA repair. Further research with larger cohorts is necessary to identify and select patients that would most benefit from prehabilitation.

Plain Language Summary: Delirium is a common complication in elderly patients after undergoing abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair. Delirium is associated with a prolonged hospital-stay, decreased quality of life and increased mortality. To prevent delirium it is important to identify possible risk factors and assess the patients’ overall fitness. This is best done preoperatively, since the patient is not yet recovering from a major surgery. This is called “prehabilitation”.
In this study, we investigated the effect of multimodal prehabilitation in patients undergoing surgery for an AAA. The program consists of:Individual delirium risk-assessment,Personalized home-based tailor-made exercises,Nutritional optimization,Iron infusion in case of anaemia, andA comprehensive geriatric assessment by a geriatrician in case of frailty.
Eighty-one control and 123 prehabilitation patients were included. A reduction in incidence of delirium was found (11.1% control to 4.9% prehabilitation), with too small numbers to reach statistical significance (p=0.09). Also, patients in the prehabilitation group had a small, non-significant decreased length of stay (4 days) compared to the control group (5 days) (p=0.07).
Prehabilitation may be effective in preventing delirium in elderly patients undergoing AAA repair. Further research is necessary to identify and select patients that would most benefit from prehabilitation.

Keywords: aneurysm of the abdominal aorta, prehabilitation, preoperative rehabilitation, delirium, delirium/prevention and control