Delirium and postoperative neurocognitive disorder are the commonest perioperative complications in elderly patients. Recently, as part of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Perioperative Brain Health Initiative, an international group of 18 experts was invited to review eight best practice statements and guidelines from January 2010 to April 2019. Thus, "Improving perioperative brain health: an expert consensus review of key actions for the perioperative care team" was released, covering education, cognitive evaluation, delirium screening, non‑pharmacologic interventions, pain control and avoidance of antipsychotics, and formed a concise list of actions that can be widely implemented. The expert consensus will effectively promote the continuous improvement of the perioperative management team and achieve the targets of reducing the incidence of perioperative neurocognitive disorder. In order to form clinical paths and guidelines that can be followed, anesthesiologists urgently need to conduct more in‑depth exploration on the evaluation and intervention of perioperative cognitive function, which will eventually to improve the prognosis of patients perioperatively.