Postoperative delirium (POD) is a common acute central nervous system syndrome after surgery. Due to the physiological degeneration, POD occurs more frequently among the elderly patients than among the children and adults and has serious impact on their postoperative outcomes. The population aging and the increasing annual volume of procedurals performed on the elderly patients have caused POD to become one of the most popular issues in the field of anesthesiology. In this article, we reviewed the recent clinical studies on POD in four respects:risk prediction, prognosis assessment, prevention strategies and treatment protocols, with a view to providing a basis for its clinical prevention and treatment among the elderly.