A narrative review described interacting patient, surgical, medication, and environmental factors. Its broad risk discussion was not a new trial isolating benzodiazepine causation.
The review’s framework
The authors discussed baseline cognition, frailty, sleep disruption, inflammation, perfusion, pain, infection, and medication exposure. Prevention emphasized multicomponent care rather than a single pharmacologic change.
Benzodiazepines appeared among relevant perioperative exposures. The review also distinguished prevention, recognition of delirium, correction of precipitating conditions, and symptom management.
Avoid a one-factor explanation
A list of risk factors does not tell how much each contributed to a particular episode. Patients with agitation, withdrawal, or severe illness may both receive sedatives and have increased delirium risk. A narrative synthesis does not randomize those pathways.
Population incidence ranges and effects quoted from other studies retain their original settings and definitions. In an opinion, reconstruct baseline cognition, onset, administered drugs, physiologic changes, and competing causes. The paper can organize that assessment, but cannot establish that removing a benzodiazepine would necessarily have prevented an individual postoperative delirium.
Source paper
Original analysis of the supplied journal article, identified as PMC12542918.
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