A new movie is coming out in the next day or two. Awake. My friend Tim, an anesthesiologist, isn't looking forward to this at all.
He anticipates a batch of hyper-anxious patients showing up in his operating room.
He agrees that awareness during anesthesia is a problem that is taken very seriously by the medical community, but it is relatively rare, especially in the way that strikes the most fear: being awake, paralyzed, in pain, unable to communicate.
He adds that the figure of 1:700 applies to a continuum of awareness from being wide awake, to having implicit memory of the event that is elicited through psychological tests following an anesthetic. So many people who were "aware" aren't aware that they were aware. In addition some people may have been vaguely or even explicitly aware of events at the beginning and end of their anesthetic that they mistake for intraoperative events. Some folks think that being aware at all during a procedure means that intraoperative awareness has taken place. Not so. Many anesthetics are done with nerve blocks and sedation, or just sedation, where the aim is pain and anxiety control, not unconsciousness.
Tim explains that anesthesia can drop your blood pressure, and some patients are at high risk of morbidity or death if that happens. Examples are trauma patients who have lost a lot of blood, or some heart patients. In addition, in obstetrics, general anesthetics are kept light to minimize the depressive effect on the baby.
And that's what he plans to tell his patients when they come for surgery, frightened after seeing Awake. Can it happen? yes. Is it rare? yes. Rarer still to be awake and paralyzed like in the movie.
"But", he sighed, "if you have such fears, what you need to do is talk about them with anesthesiologist." "He or she is in the best position of explaining the anesthetic you will have, and whether awareness is likely, or expected with a particular anesthetic."
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In this thriller, a young man needs to have a heart transplant, and after undergoing anesthesia realizes he can hear everything going on in the room. Including details of a plot to do away with him during the surgery. I don't know how he gets out of that situation. It would seem to me that the deck is stacked against him, but I think it would be a very short movie if he didn't get out of it.
Stars Hayden Christopher, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard.
{Image from About.com]
there was a segment on TV this morning about a woman who underwent a c section, and could feel and hear what was happening. She could not move or speak to let the surgeons know she was aware, because of the type of medication she was given. Yikes! that is scary.
Posted by: keewee | November 30, 2007 at 12:04 PM