Awareness In Anesthesia

“She will sleep the sleep of death,” said Ghoneim (2001) in his book Awareness during Anesthesia (p. 55). This quote depicts a patient waking up from anesthesia hearing this disturbing quote during surgery. In our ever growing medical field our practices are getting more and more advanced which has both advantages and disadvantages. Patient recall is a frightening and fascinating concept describing how a patient could remember events while under anesthesia during surgery. It is a rising concern in the medical field because of its traumatic effects on the patients. Patient awareness involves the patient under anesthesia experiencing pain, vaguely remembering music or the physicians talking. This topic is very controversial in that there are not many cases in which a patient experienced recall or brought it to the anesthetist’s attention. Patient recall may result from patients’ preconceived notions, genetic and biological complications, as well as from mistakes made by poorly trained professionals; to solve this problem, patients and anesthesia providers must work together.

Anesthesia has been used throughout medical history; the purpose of anesthesia is to prevent pain during medical procedures. Claudia M. Caruana (2010) mentions that anesthesia works by blocking nerve signals from going to the brain, thus preventing the body to respond by trying to stop the pain by moving or struggling (p. 8). Anesthesia has many different uses for many different types of surgeries and involves the use of very powerful sedatives for intensive surgeries and very light sedatives like nitrous oxide. All of the drugs in the anesthesiologist’s arsenal have different uses for different occasions that can be a benefit and can also be a defect.

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... your mind for surgery. Other causes, such as genetic and biological variations that contribute to anesthesia awareness, may not be as easily controlled, different anesthetics and drugs may be substituted to accommodate each patient. To be successful in preventing anesthesia recall, the patient must be willing to contribute and help avoid this terrible dilemma some patients have already faced.

What hope do we have for the future? Will anesthesia providers and patients both be able to work in unison to be able to overcome the terrifying reality of patient recall? All these preventative measures we all take are just a small part of how we all can prevent patient recall and possibly eliminate it in its entirety. What conclusions can you make? Are these problems and possible solutions adequate and able to address and solve the anesthesia awareness crisis we have today?