Views: 2 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2020-07-12 Origin: Site
Anesthesia is a state of control, a temporary loss of sensation or consciousness, for medical purposes. It may include pain relief (relief or prevention of pain), paralysis, amnesia, or unconsciousness. Patients under the influence of anesthetic drugs are called anesthetics. This article shall tell you more about it, especially the anesthesia supplies used during the process.
What are the categories of anesthesia?
What are the anesthesia supplies used during anesthesia?
What are the medical uses of anesthesia?
Anesthesia makes the process painless, otherwise it would cause severe or unbearable pain to the unanesthetized patient, or it would not be technically feasible. There are three main categories of anesthesia, in which different anesthesia supplies are being used:
General anesthesia suppresses the activity of the central nervous system, leading to complete loss of unconsciousness and sensation. Patients under general anesthesia may lose consciousness by intravenous or inhaled drugs.
Sedation suppresses the central nervous system to a lesser extent, suppressing anxiety and the production of long-term memories, but does not lead to unconsciousness.
Local anesthesia, which prevents nerve impulses from traveling from a particular part of the body. Depending on the situation, this method can be used alone (in which case the patient is still awake) or in combination with general anesthesia or sedation. Drugs can target peripheral nerves and anesthetize only one isolated part of the body, such as the teeth during dental surgery, or use nerve blocks to suppress sensations throughout the limb. An alternative is epidural, spinal or combined anesthesia in the central nervous system area to suppress all afferent sensations from outside the block area.
Many anesthesia supplies are included in the process of anesthesia. These anesthesia supplies include: the respirator bag and valve mask, the anesthesia machine, the oxygen mask, the laryngoscope, the syringe, the spinal needles, the Tuohy needle, the flexible endoscope and so on.
The purpose of anesthesia can be summarized into three basic goals or endpoints:
Hypnosis (temporary loss of consciousness and subsequent memory loss). In the context of pharmacology, the word "hypnosis" usually has this technical meaning, as opposed to its more familiar level or psychological meaning, that a change in the state of consciousness is not necessarily caused by a drug.
Pain relief (loss of sensation, also reducing autonomic reflexes)
Muscle relaxation.
Different types of anesthesia have different effects on the terminal point. For example, regional anesthesia with specialized anesthesia supplies can affect pain relief; Benzodiazepines (used for sedation, or "dusk anesthesia") are good for forgetfulness; General anesthesia affects all endpoints. The goal of anesthesia is to achieve the desired end point for a particular surgical procedure with minimal risk to the patient. In order to be anesthetized, drugs act on different but interconnected parts of the nervous system and different anesthesia supplies are carefully chosen and used. Hypnosis, for example, is produced by acting on the nucleus of the brain, similar to the activation of sleep. The result is a lack of awareness and response to harmful stimuli.
Memory loss is caused by drugs, given to patients by different anesthesia supplies, acting on multiple (but specific) areas of the brain. Memory is divided into declarative memory and non-declarative memory stages (short term, long term, long term). Its strength is determined by the strength of synaptic plasticity connections between neurons. Each anesthetic produces forgetfulness through its unique role in memory formation at different doses. Inhaled anesthetics will reliably produce forgetfulness by the total inhibition of the nucleus below the dose required for loss of consciousness. Drugs such as midazolam block the formation of long-term memory, creating forgetfulness in different ways.
Closely related to the concepts of amnesia and hypnosis is the concept of consciousness. Consciousness is an advanced process of synthesizing information. For example, "the sun" evokes feelings, memories and a warm feeling, not an orange orb seen in the sky in a 24-hour cycle. Similarly, a person may have a dream (a subjective state of consciousness) during anesthesia, or may still be conscious without any signs of it. It is estimated that 22 percent of people dream while under general anesthesia, and that one or two out of every 1,000 have "consciousness while under general anesthesia”.
It is always important to keep the airway open during any general anesthesia, especially any type of oral surgery performed under general anesthesia. It is also critically important to choose the right anesthesia supplies as well as use the anesthesia supplies in the correct way. These becomes even more important with the increasing use of intravenous anesthetics. The article above has given a detailed concept of anesthesia. For more information and for purchases of our anesthesia supplies, contact us.