Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 2010
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyCorrelations between controlled endotracheal tube cuff pressure and postprocedural complications: a multicenter study.
Postoperative respiratory complications related to endotracheal intubation usually present as cough, sore throat, hoarseness, and blood-streaked expectorant. In this study, we investigated the short-term (hours) impact of measuring and controlling endotracheal tube cuff (ETTc) pressure on postprocedural complications. ⋯ ETTc pressure estimated by palpation with personal experience is often much higher than measured or what may be optimal. Proper control of ETTc pressure by a manometer helped reduce ETT-related postprocedural respiratory complications such as cough, sore throat, hoarseness, and blood-streaked expectoration even in procedures of short duration (1-3 hours).
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 2010
Feedback mechanisms including real-time electronic alerts to achieve near 100% timely prophylactic antibiotic administration in surgical cases.
Administration of prophylactic antibiotics during surgery is generally performed by the anesthesia providers. Timely antibiotic administration within the optimal time window before incision is critical for prevention of surgical site infections. However, this often becomes a difficult task for the anesthesia team during the busy part of a case when the patient is being anesthetized. ⋯ Installation of AIMS itself did not improve antibiotic compliance over that achieved with paper anesthesia records. However, real-time guidance and reminders through electronic messages generated by a computerized decision support system (Smart Anesthesia Messenger, or SAM) significantly improved compliance. With such a system a consistent compliance of >99% was achieved.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 2010
Randomized Controlled TrialThe analgesic and antihyperalgesic effects of transcranial electrostimulation with combined direct and alternating current in healthy volunteers.
Transcranial electrostimulation (TES) has been reported to produce clinically significant analgesia, but randomized and double-blind studies are lacking. We investigated the analgesic and antihyperalgesic effects of TES in validated human experimental pain models. ⋯ TES produces significant, frequency-dependent antihyperalgesic and analgesic effects in humans. The characteristics of the TES effects indicate a high likelihood of its ability to modulate both peripheral sensitization of nociceptors and central hyperexcitability.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 2010
Randomized Controlled TrialThe accuracy of the anesthetic conserving device (AnaConDa©) as an alternative to the classical vaporizer in anesthesia.
The Anesthetic Conserving Device--AnaConDa® (ACD)--has been compared with a conventional vaporizer. However, the accuracy of the administered concentration of volatile anesthetics was not examined. In the present study we measured the accuracy of the ACD when used as a portable vaporizer. ⋯ We found that the ACD may be a valid alternative to the conventional vaporizer. The ACD is very simple to use, delivery rate needs to be adjusted only once per hour, and the anesthetic savings are independent of the circuit characteristics and fresh gas flow rate.