Treatment of Perioperative Neurocognitive Disorders With Olfactory Enrichment

Perioperative neurocognitive disorder (PND) is one of the most common postoperative complications among elderly patients. However, the mechanism and targeted intervention of PND remains unclear. Our previous clinical studies demonstrated the association between olfactory impairment and PND. Moreover, our translational studies showed that anesthesia/surgery induced olfactory impairment and caused cognitive impairment in mice and olfactory enrichment could prevent the anesthesia/surgery-induced cognitive impairment. However, there was no clinical investigation to determine whether olfactory enrichment can mitigate PND in elderly patients. Therefore, we propose determining whether olfactory enrichment can prevent and/or treat PND in elderly patients.