In daily life, we often hear rumors like “anaesthesia makes people stupid”, which makes people worry about anesthesia a lot, which affects the development of clinical treatment to a certain extent.
Anesthesia is a treatment method that uses drugs or other methods to temporarily lose the patient’s overall or local sensation in order to achieve the purpose of painless surgery. It includes general anesthesia and local anesthesia.
General anesthesia: refers to the process of inhaling anesthetics into the body through inhalation, intravenous, intramuscular injection, or rectal infusion, so that the central nervous system is inhibited, and the patient’s consciousness disappears without pain in the whole body. The characteristic is that the patient’s consciousness disappears, the muscles of the body are relaxed, and no pain is experienced. The patient seemed to have slept, wake up and the operation is completed.
Local anesthesia: refers to the injection of local anesthetics such as procaine, lidocaine, etc. into the corresponding part to block the spinal nerve, nerve plexus or nerve trunk and finer peripheral nerve endings, and temporarily lose a part of the body feel. The characteristic is that the anesthesia is confined to the “parts” of the body, and the patient’s consciousness is clear. Including intraspinal anesthesia (block), nerve block, regional block, local infiltration anesthesia and surface anesthesia. Topical anesthesia is to spray or apply a strong local anesthetic to the mucosa, conjunctiva and other surfaces to produce anesthesia, which is suitable for superficial surgery.
So, does anesthesia affect memory or make people dumb?
Local anesthetics act on the nerves in the local area and generally do not enter the blood, let alone affect the brain or intelligence. As for general anesthetics, excessively large doses of anesthetics will indeed cause a blow to the nervous system, but after more than one hundred years of exploration, people have basically determined the safe dose of existing anesthetics. Generally speaking, more than 95% of anesthetics will be excreted through the liver, kidneys, and respiratory tract within 6 hours without affecting intelligence. In the few days or weeks after anesthesia, only a few of the young and middle-aged people will experience temporary memory loss, but there is almost no evidence that anesthesia will damage people’s memory for a long time. For children and the elderly, the central nervous system of their brains is relatively fragile. Some children and the elderly may be affected by anesthesia, and their memory, learning ability and concentration will decline in a short period of time, that is, “postoperative cognitive impairment.” This is related to the patient’s age, time of anesthesia, surgical complications, postoperative infections and other factors, not necessarily related to anesthetics, and most of them recover quickly.
Some people say that they shiver unconsciously after waking up from anesthesia. What is going on?
This condition usually occurs after a local anesthesia operation, and most patients will experience shivering unconsciously after local anesthesia, commonly known as chills. It is a stress response that the body regulates skeletal muscles for rapid and rhythmic expansion and contraction. This is because after local anesthesia, the vasoconstriction and regulation ability of the anesthetized area is lost, and a large amount of heat energy is lost through the skin of the anesthetized area. In addition, the temperature in the operating room is relatively low, and blood transfusion and fluid infusion during the operation will aggravate the loss of heat, thereby lowering the body temperature. In order to maintain body temperature, the body will initiate a chilling stress program and respond.
Of course, drugs have more or less side effects. Anesthetics are one of the special drugs, and their side effects include nausea, vomiting, suppression of breathing, suppression of heart and lung function, etc. But in the case of standardized operation and reasonable dosage, the probability of adverse reactions is very small. Many people simply think that anesthesia means that the anesthesiologist gives an injection of anesthetic before the operation. In fact, it is not. The anesthesiologist’s job not only ensures that the patient receives the operation smoothly under painless and safe conditions, but also includes many preparations and treatments before and after the anesthesia. Wait.
Before anesthesia, the doctor will select the appropriate anesthesia method, medication, dosage, etc. according to the patient’s condition. It will also fully evaluate the problems that may occur during the operation, and make adequate preparations and preventive measures. During anesthesia, monitoring will be done, including continuous monitoring of functions such as circulation, respiration, water and electrolyte, and body temperature. And according to the changes in the anesthesia process, effective treatments are made, such as maintaining the stability of hemodynamics, and performing respiratory management. After anesthesia, according to different conditions and operations, continuous monitoring of patients will be done to prevent complications, deal with accidents in time, and help patients recover as soon as possible.
In short, with the advancement of anesthesia technology, the anesthetics currently used clinically are very safe. There is a professional anesthesiologist to check the whole procedure, so patients can rest assured.
