Fear awake under anesthesia justified

What if I came to consciousness under general anesthesia directly to the operating table? This frightening thought occurred to every patient who is waiting for a complicated surgery.

So, what are the chances of waking up from the anesthesia during his surgery? Despite the fact that next to the patient resides anesthesiologist who carefully monitors the effect of drugs, the risk is quite high, as established by German researchers. In varying degrees, in the consciousness during surgery are two of every thousand patients who are   under general anesthesia .

Peter Bischoff of the Ruhr University in Bochum and Ingrid Rundskhagen of Hospital "Charité" in Berlin say that the awakening from anesthesia during surgery and the ability to remember what they were doing at that time, surgeons, is a common complication of anesthesia. Nevertheless, after this complication in a patient may remain a long-term trauma, according to German researchers.

According to Dr. Bischoff Rundskhagen and, in most cases, the awakening under general anesthesia   Anesthesiologists cause errors, miscalculated the dose of medication and the depth of immersion in the sleep of patients. But there are other risk factors. For example, if the patient has a history of long-term use of painkillers, its risk to wake up during the operation grows.

There are a number of surgical procedures during which a similar danger above. For example, caesarean section or emergency surgery. Also at risk are operations carried out at night. The study authors call for anesthesiologists to take into account all risk factors, since recently the number of awakenings described above began to grow.

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