Research on dexmedetomidine and propofol for the treatment of postoperative delirium

Objective: To explore the curative effect of dexmedetomidine and propofol on the treatment of postoperative delirium. Methods: A total of 60 patients with postoperative delirium were collected by our hospital from March 2015 to March 2016 and divided into treatment group and control group with different therapeutic drug for 30 cases in each group. The patients in control group were treated by propofol. And the patients in treatment group were treated with dexmedetomidine. The therapeutic effect, number of days in hospital, incidence of adverse events and recurrence rate were compared between two groups to investigate the difference of these two drugs. Results: The cure rate, total effective rate and recurrence rate in treatment group were 80%, 93.33% and 3.34%, respectively. However, the cure rate, total effective rate and recurrence rate in control group were 53.33%, 53.33%, and 20%, respectively. Compared with the control group, the number of hospitalization days and incidence of adverse events in treatment group were lower with statistical significance (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Dexmedetomidine and propofol are effective in patients with postoperative delirium, but dexmedetomidine was used in patients with less adverse reaction in terms of drug adverse reactions. Thus, dexmedetomidine is the first choice for treatment of patients with postoperative delirium. It deserves wide use in clinical application.