Doctor: “There is an option to stay awake for the procedure. What would you prefer?”
Patient: “Well, I don’t know doctor. Which would you choose?”
It’s a difficult question. The literature has shown that each to have their benefits but also disadvantages. Several considerations should be taken into account such as the co-morbidities of the patient, the type and duration of the surgery, experience of the anaesthetist and patient preference – some patients may rather be asleep; some theatre personnel may also prefer their patients to be asleep!
Introduction
Regional anaesthesia (RA) is the loss of sensation of part of the body by the use of local anaesthetics. It can be used as an alternative to general anaesthesia (GA) where all sensation and awareness is lost during the procedure. Patients are thus provided with an option to remain awake during their procedure in RA. RA is also indicated for analgesia or combined with a GA to reduce post-operative analgesia requirements.
The popularity of RA has varied since its discovery- we all know the analgesic benefits of applying ice or heat on an area and this was likely the first use of ‘regional anaesthesia’ hundreds of years ago. Indigenous South Americans discovered the numbing effects of chewing coca leaves long before cocaine was isolated from the leaves. Karl Koller and Sigmund Freund first described the anaesthetic effects of cocaine during ophthalmologic procedures in 1884 (1). There were several pioneers of RA in the years that followed. Improvements were made when less toxic pharmacological agents such as Lidocaine in 1943 were discovered and better techniques developed. In recent years, the use of RA has become increasingly popular in several areas of medicine. An audit of h...
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...reland TOAA, Regional Anaesthesia UK, . Regional Anaesthesia and Patients with Abnormalities of Coagulation 2013. Available from: http://www.aagbi.org/sites/default/files/rapac_2013_web.pdf.
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17. Matthey PW, Finegan Ba Fau - Finucane BT, Finucane BT. The public's fears about and perceptions of regional anesthesia. (1098-7339 (Print)).
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Prior to intubation for a surgical procedure, the anesthesiologist administered a single dose of the neuromuscular blocking agent, succinylcholine, to a 23-year-old female to provide muscular relaxation during surgery and to facilitate the insertion of the endotracheal tube. Following this, the inhalation anesthetic was administered and the surgical procedure completed.
Smith, C., Sidhu, R., Lucas, L., Mehta, D., & Pinchak, A. (2007, March 13). Should patients undergoing ambulatory surgery with general anesthesia be actively warmed? Internet Journal of Anesthesiology, 12(1).
Occasionally music is used as medicine. One scholar shows that music can lower blood pressure, speed up stroke recovery, help you fall asleep, and help relieve pain (Surprising Effects of Music). Many schools provide a challenging curriculum for their students. Music classes would give students a chance to relax. Research demonstrates that liste...
Now let’s break down what General Anesthesia actually is. General Anesthesia makes you both unconscious and unable to feel pain during medical procedures. A study done by a team from Harvard Medical School, Weill Cornell Medical college, and the Massachusetts Ins...
Volles, D. F. (2011, April 11). University of Virginia Health System Adult and Geriatric Sedation/Analgesia for Diagnostic and Therapeutic Procedures. Retrieved May 12, 2011, from University of Virgina Health System: University of Virginia Health System Adult and Geriatric Sedation/Analgesia for Diagnostic and Therapeutic Procedures
Have you ever wondered why you have no feeling during surgery? The reasoning behind this is a doctor called an anesthesiologist. For those who are wondering who they are and what they do, anesthesiologists are doctors who, after completing many years of school and training, work many hours to make sure patients feel no pain during surgery, and earn a good salary along with good benefits.
“Technological advancements in anesthesia practice: Role of decision support system.” Anesthesia: Essays and Researches. January 8, 2014. Web. October 23, 2015. There have been many advancements in technology in the anesthesia field. A recent major advancement has been the decision support system (DSS). The decision support system acts similar to a second human central nervous system, and receives as well as relays information to and from the patient and the anesthesia information management system (AIMS). The DSS helps to maintain the data coming into and out of the patient during a medical procedure. The DSS also provides help during a medical crisis, giving the physicians a solution if an intra-operation (during the operation) crisis happens. The DSS can also design various scenarios for pre, intra, and post operation scenarios for the anesthesiologist to prepare for based on that patient’s medical history, information, and
2) “It’s difficult to determine who provides anesthesia care in the studies and the number of cases that actually involved a physician anesthesiologist (p. 11)” the ASA is claiming that the data collected and used in this review, are difficult to determine who did what and when. In other words it is unclear as to who was performing and providing care in these studies and very well could be, the care provided by an anesthesiologist. They say also that the data provided and used by the study has limiting factors to determine whether an anesthesiologist was available as needed, for rescue or advice by a patient being treated by a nurse anesthetist if they were to experience complications under the
American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. Professional Aspects of Nurse Anesthesia Practice. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company, 1994. Print.
Lindley, P., Pestano, C. R., & Gargiulo, K. (2009). Comparison of postoperative pain management using two patient-controlled analgesia methods: Nursing perspective. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 65(7), 1370-1380. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2009.04991.x
Stomberg, M., Sjöström, B., & Haljamäe, H. (2003). The Role of the Nurse Anesthetist in the Planning of Postoperative Pain Management. AANA Journal, 71(3), 197.
Potent pain medication contains the aspects of utilizing medications such as morphine or demerol, how the medications are dispensed, and t...
Anesthesia is used in almost every single surgery. It is a numbing medicine that numbs the nerves and makes the body go unconscious. You can’t feel anything or move while under the sedative and are often delusional after being taken off of the anesthetic. Believe it or not, about roughly two hundred years ago doctors didn’t use anesthesia during surgery. It was rarely ever practiced. Patients could feel everything and were physically held down while being operated on. 2It wasn’t until 1846 that a dentist first used an anesthetic on a patient going into surgery and the practice spread and became popular (Anesthesia). To this day, advancements are still being made in anesthesiology. 7The more scientists learn about molecules and anesthetic side effects, the better ability to design agents that are more targeted, more effective and safer, with fewer side effects for the patients (Anesthesia). Technological advancements will make it easier to read vital life signs in a person and help better decide the specific dosages a person needs.
There are still many barriers interfering with sleep in the hospital, as the disruption of sleep is common through frequent monitoring and procedures, noise, lighting, and anxiety about being in the hospital (Robinson et al., 2005). Another barrier is the critical care environment, which has more invasive monitoring and tests and noise from monitors and ventilators (Eliassen & Hopstock, 2011).
Everyday, people go through surgery and require a specialist that will monitor their surgery as well as give them what they need to be able to persevere the pain, which is exactly what anesthesiologists do. In order for the patients to be able to get into surgery and deal with the agonizing aches after the abscission, anesthesiologists have to give the sufferer the proper treatment before and after the surgery. Overall, anesthesiologists must be highly educated in both medicine and communication, they need to be able to give the patient the right amount of medicine as well as speak with the family of patients and other doctors to inform them all with what will be done during the surgery, and they need to be able to properly assist the surgeons during operations.