Most today are familiar with the practice of using drugs to render a patient unconscious during surgery or to dull the pain of the dentist chair. Anesthesia services provide for the safe administration of the proper type and dosage of anesthetic by a professional anesthesiologist. Post-operation recovery, monitored anesthesia care, and pain management are also included in anesthesia services and are cover-able by Medicaid. Properly administered anesthetics are an integral part of the modern health care industry and can improve the results of a physician’s patient care procedures.
Before the advent of modern anesthetics, surgical procedures that today have a high success rate were often life-threatening. The extreme blood pressure and pulse rates put such stress on the nervous system that the body could not bear it. While there are risks associated with use of anesthesia, overall anesthetics are a blessing. The amount of risk in use depends on a patient’s physical condition before surgery, the type of surgery and type of anesthetic involved, and the level of expertise possessed by those administering the drugs. The best anesthetic is the one that reaches its goals with the lowest risk to the patient.
For many surgical operations, powerful and long-lasting anesthesia is a must since the pain level would be extraordinarily high and because of the uncertainty of the length of the operation- bad things will happen if a patient suddenly wakes up in the middle of, say, a heart bypass operation! For most surgeries, it is imperative that the patient’s muscles be relaxed, that he or she hold still, and that the reflexes be checked. This will allow the doctor to avoid making wrong incisions, perform his work quicker, and not be mentally distracted during the process. Excessive pain can cause involuntary movements that even the toughest individuals cannot avoid, and any such movement is a negative factor during a delicate operation.
Bad memories, even nightmares, of painful experiences can be reduced or avoided by some anesthetics as they inhibit the long-term memory function in the brain- that is, a state of amnesia is induced. While over 20% of patients are said to dream during a state of general (total body) anesthesia, and some have had some level of consciousness while in surgery, yet the higher levels of consciousness involving information processing are checked, avoiding the ill effects of pain and memory of pain. Anesthetics are as much meant to be aids to the physician at his work as to be pain-killers for the patient.
Anesthesia services do not in themselves benefit the patient directly, but instead improve the clinical performance of other operations or make possible operations otherwise undo-able. Inhalation using a vaporizer or anesthesia machine and intravenously injection are the two main methods of anesthesia inducement. Different particular drugs are used for different operations and goals, and multiple drug types may be used for a single operation. One might be used initially to cause unconsciousness, another to blunt reflexes (analgesia), another for amnesia, and yet another to maintain the effects of the earlier drugs till surgery is safely over. Anesthesia may be general to the body, localized in one limb or area, or spinal such that all the body below a certain point is numbed.
According to PremierAnesthesia.com, post-surgery pain and stress reduction via continued anesthetic can improve patient health and avoid the development of chronic pain in the future. Improvements not only in the “on-table” performance, but also in the after-care is a significant goal of physicians. It is also true that anesthetics are sometimes taken to reduce anxiety and stress unrelated to surgery. Both out-patients and in-patients benefit from anesthetics.
Anesthesia services improve performance of physicians and comfort of patients by fielding a staff of highly experienced professionals who have learned all the details of anesthesia. With the complexity of the topic as regards drugs and doses appropriate for particular operations, administration methods and equipment, and later monitoring for possible side effects, it is a discipline all its own and requires expert attention.
