Articles: general-anesthesia.
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In obstetric anaesthesia, general anaesthesia combined with endotracheal intubation, spinal anaesthesia and peridural anaesthesia is used. The main risks of general anaesthesia are: difficult intubation, aspiration of acid gastric content in non-fasting patients, depression of the fetus with narcotics and the occurrence of awareness of the mother. ⋯ The specific risks of peridural anaesthesia are: maternal hypotension, the possibility of inadvertent intravenous injection of local anaesthetics leading to cardiac and cerebral intoxication, inadvertent intrathecal application of local anaesthetics followed by total spinal block which requires reanimation and inadvertent dura perforation followed by long-lasting headache. Most anaesthesia-related maternal deaths by far occur during Caesarean section performed under general anaesthesia, but at present there is no clear evidence that the anaesthetic risk of spinal or peridural anaesthesia, on the one hand, is lower than that one of general anaesthesia, on the other.
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Tijdschr Gerontol Geriatr · Oct 1993
Review[The role of general or regional anesthesia in the etiology of cognitive disorders in elderly subjects. Literature review].
In the eighties and nineties, eighteen papers were published concerning the influence of general or regional anaesthesia on mental function of elderly patients. In both groups mental changes can be found in the immediate post-operative period, but not on the long term. Analysis of these studies shows a relation between postoperative mental changes and, for example, high doses of drugs, a low preoperative level of mental performance or other factors, associated with personality and environment of the patient.