Send us Fan Mail We often assume confusion after surgery is temporary. But what if those few days of delirium are actually a major turning point in the aging brain? New research from Harvard and Hebrew SeniorLife suggests postoperative delirium may be the strongest predictor of long-term cognitive decline - and what we're learning could fundamentally change how we think about dementia and healthy aging. Each year, millions of older adults undergo surgery successfully, only to experience episodes of confusion, disorientation, memory impairment, or altered awareness in the days that follow. For decades, many clinicians viewed postoperative delirium as a temporary complication that resolved once patients left the hospital. But emerging research suggests a much more profound story. Our guest today is Dr. Tammy Hshieh, MD, MPH, is physician-scientist, geriatrician, and internationally recognized expert on delirium, cognitive impairment, and healthy aging. Dr. Hshieh serves as Assistant Scientist at the Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife ( https://www.marcusinstituteforaging.org/who-we-are/profiles/tammy-hshieh-md-mph ), Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School ( https://connects.catalyst.harvard.edu/Profiles/display/Person/33333 ), and Associate Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital ( https://physiciandirectory.brighamandwomens.org/Details/12170 ). After earning her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Harvard University and her MD from Brown University's Alpert Medical School, Dr. Hshieh completed residency training in Internal Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine through Harvard Medical School, and earned a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Hshieh's research focuses on understanding, preventing, and treating delirium and cognitive decline in older adults - conditions that carry enormous consequences for independence, quality of life, and healthcare systems worldwide. In groundbreaking work recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Dr. Hshieh and colleagues demonstrated that postoperative delirium remains the strongest predictor of long-term cognitive decline, even after accounting for rehospitalizations and other markers of illness and frailty. Their findings suggest that delirium may represent far more than a transient hospital complication - it may be a critical turning point in the trajectory of brain aging itself. Clinically, Dr. Hshieh co-manages older surgical patients at Brigham and Women's Hospital in one of the nation's most innovative geriatric-surgical care programs and leads the Older Adult Hematologic Malignancy Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ( https://www.dana-farber.org/find-a-doctor/tammy-t-hshieh ), where she works to improve outcomes for older adults facing cancer treatment. Today we'll discuss delirium, dementia, cognitive resilience, surgical risk, brain aging, and what patients, families, and healthcare systems can do to better protect the aging brain. #Delirium #Dementia #BrainHealth #HealthyAging #CognitiveDecline #Alzheimers #HarvardMedicine #Geriatrics #Longevity #Surgery #PostoperativeDelirium #AgingResearch #Neuroscience #Healthcare #Medicine #BrainAging #CognitiveHealth #Prevention #Podcast #ProgressPotentialPossibilities Support the show
