A 65-year-old person applied to the clinic recently. He said that he had been struggling with his weight for many years, he was tired of it, he could not lose weight and wanted to have sleeve gastrectomy surgery. He actually met the criteria for surgery in terms of his weight.
I am sure it is 65 your age? when I asked
''Yes, I am sure. Even though I have 5 years left to live, I want to live it in a quality way,'' he said. This answer impressed me a lot.
Then he started to explain. He explained at length how much his weight made him tired as he got older, that he could not even climb 2 flights of stairs day by day, that his knees and back ached all the time, and how his quality of life deteriorated.
In fact, those who have experienced the negative effects of obesity and excess weight on the quality of life know best. It is like carrying a sack full of stones on their back for many years. Carrying that sack may not be too difficult when you are young and healthy, but as you get older, that sack becomes unmovable. Sometimes, the load in that sack increases even more. After a while, those kilos deteriorate both health parameters and quality of life. This situation becomes unbearable after a while and leaves the person even more inactive. It's like a swamp that slowly engulfs you.
Nowadays, it is defined as old age over 65 years. In studies, it is stated that an 80-year-old person has a 2% risk of death and a 20% risk of complications in cardiac surgery, operations other than cardiac surgery. Considering that the risk of bariatric surgery and tube stomach surgery is even lower than that of gallbladder and appendicitis surgeries today, a 65-year-old person can safely have a sleeve gastrectomy if there is no serious disease that prevents surgery.
In 1991, in the first published guidelines containing the bariatric surgery application criteria, it was foreseen and recommended that bariatric surgery be applied between the ages of 18-60. However, in many studies, it has been proven that sleeve gastrectomy surgery can be performed safely with very low risk in the 65-year-old group. Although the health gain of a 65-year-old who had sleeve gastrectomy surgery is not as much as those who had surgery at young or middle age, it has been demonstrated in many studies that effective weight loss significantly improves the quality of life and health parameters in this age group as well.
