Anesthesia Geriatric Evaluation (AGE): A Care-Ethical Perspective of a Multi-Disciplinary Approach for Tailored Preoperative Interventions

Abstract

Background: Frailty is considered to be an important risk factor for mortality in hospitalized patients. This study evaluates a preoperative frailty-screening tool called Anesthesia Geriatric Evaluation (AGE). Research into the concept of frailty, with a focus on multidisciplinary team meetings, may provide further insight for health care professionals in the understanding of frailty in everyday care situations. Methods: The research method chosen for this research is QUAGOL: Qualitative Analysis Guide of Leuven, which aims to reconstruct the story of the participants on a theoretical level and analyze the concepts found. Results: The following themes illustrate the analyzed concepts found: competence, resilience, sharing responsibility, broad frame of reference, obligation, and significance. Conclusion: AGE seems to create more awareness among health care professionals about frailty and tries to involve patients in their care process by making them aware of their abilities, motivation, and involving them in decisions to be made. This study shows that a shared decision-making process for surgical patients is often difficult to accomplish since AGE is still a paternalistic process of a multidisciplinary team with a medical perspective.