Bariatric Surgery or Weight Loss Surgery – Types, Complications and Results

Selection of Patients

Patients must meet the following criteria for consideration for bariatric surgery:

BMI >40 kg/m² or BMI >35 kg/m² with an associated medical co morbidity worsened by obesity

Generally when a person’s weight is 220kg or over, they are considered for this surgery.

Dietary therapy has failed to achieve results

Mentally (psychiatrically) stable without alcohol dependence or illegal drug use

Fully informed about the operation and its consequences

Motivated

No medical problems that would possibly prevent survival from surgery

Certain other factors taken into account include:

 If a person is obese for at least 5 years

 No previous history of alcohol abuse

 No history of depression or another major psychiatric disorder

Age is a controversial area for selection of patients for the surgery. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved LAP-BAND for use in patients 18 years and older. The age of 60s is generally set as a cut off for performing gastric bypass. Increasing experience will be required to decide what type of surgery benefits which age group.

Preparing For Weight Loss Surgery

The success of medical therapy for severe obesity is limited. Despite this limited success, a medically supervised diet program is first tried on every severely obese patient. Consultation with an array of specialists is scheduled before the surgery:

It is necessary for persons to undergo a thorough certain examinations to determine eligibility for gastric bypass surgery such as:

Medical
Nutritional
Psychiatric

These evaluations are done to protect the patient's interests, and to give the surgical team proper information necessary for the procedure.

A detailed work up is done to rule out any of the contra indications. For details refer to the FAQs section of this article.