Objective To study the influence of general anesthesia and epidural anesthesia on postoperative short-term cognitive function in the elderly patients undergoing orthopedics surgery.Methods 120 patients with hip joint displacement or internal fixation after femur fracture and American Society of Anesthesiology Ⅰ and Ⅱ were randomly divided into general anesthesia and epidural anesthesia groups(n=60 for each group).Artery blood pressure(ABP)and heart rate were recorded before operation,pre-operation after anesthesia,during 30 min operation,during main operation and at operation end.Cognitive function was detected by mini-mental state(MMS)before induction of anesthesia and 6 h,12 h,24 h and 72 h after anesthesia.Results There were no differences in ABP and heart rate during operation between the two groups(P＞0.05).The scores of MMS in general anesthesia group at 6 h(26.5±0.5),12 h(25.4±0.7)and 24 h(27.4±0.3)were decreased as compared with pre-induction of anesthesia(29.5 ± 0.3)(P＜ 0.05),while no difference was found at 72 h(29.3±0.3).The scores of MMS in epidural anesthesia group at 6 h(26.6±0.4)and 12 h(25.6±0.8)were lower(P＜0.05),while had no difference at 24 h(29.1±0.4)and 72 h (29.5±0.4)(P＞0.05)as compared with pre-induction of anesthesia(29.4±0.4).At 24 h after anesthesia,the MMS scores were higher in epidural anesthesia group(29.1±0.4)than in general anesthesia group(27.4±0.3)(P＜0.01).Conclusions General anesthesia may contribute to more obvious influences on cognitive function than epidural anaesthesias within 12h after operation in the elderly patients undergoing orthopedics surgery.