Anesthesia: What if you regain consciousness much earlier?

Intra-operative awareness remains an undesirable complication with potential for the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. Assessing the depth of anesthesia was a challenge for the anesthetist as clinical signs are unreliable and there was no sensitive and specific monitor till recent times.

Following surgery,patients who believe they may have experienced anesthesia awareness are encouraged to contact their anesthesiologist regarding their experience. The first step in overcoming the adverse emotional consequences of an intra-operative awareness experience is acknowledgement that it may have occurred.

Intra-operative awareness is obviously a terrible outcome,and clearly we need to do everything we can to prevent it,” reveals Tope adds “should awareness occur despite our best efforts,we must engage the patient in a program of psychological rehabilitation to reduce these long-term consequences.”

Medical community is aggressively addressing intra-operative awareness,but there are things that even the patients should do to limit their risk. First of all listing down all medications before surgery as some might make your body metabolize things more quickly. One also needs to give a brief account of family history and medical risk factors.

Also when researching on surgeon,one should not forget to find out who will be administering and monitoring surgical anesthesia. Find out about their credentials,training,and safety record. It could be the most important research you do to protect your safety when undergoing any surgical procedure.

An anaesthesiologist is as good as his training and the equipment he has. Modern anaesthesia has couple of unique monitoring machines. These machines when used properly and in conjunction with standard intra operative patient monitoring can reduce the incidence of awareness to one in one lakh or less.

GAS MONITORING. Every breath you take I’ll be watching you. (Police 1982). This is an equipment that measures the inhaled and exhaled concentration of anaesthetic. The concentration gives a good assessment of the depth of anaesthesia. This monitor is getting affordable in the last few years. This equipment also makes anaesthesia infinitely safe by measuring carbon dioxide.

DEPTH OF ANAESTHESIA. This monitor is akin to an altimeter for a pilot. It tells how deep the patient is anaesthetized. The costs of this equipment have come down steeply in the last 5 years.

Incidence of awareness can be made six sigma compliant by good training of anaesthetists,availability of gas monitor or depth of anaesthesia monitor,awareness amongst doctors,public,hospital managers and adequate legislation.