Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 1993
Parental knowledge and attitudes toward discussing the risk of death from anesthesia.
There is considerable debate as to the extent of disclosure of risks when obtaining informed consent for anesthesia, especially when discussing with parents the rare risk of death of healthy children about to undergo elective, outpatient surgery. In Part I, we attempted to determine parents' knowledge about the risks of anesthesia as well as their thoughts toward either hearing, or not hearing, about the risk of death. In the first part of our study, 115 parents completed questionnaires before speaking with the anesthesiologist. ⋯ Seventy-five (68%) parents knew that this risk was "extremely rare," 21 (19%) believed that it occurs "once in a while," and 14 (13%) thought there was "no chance." Eighty-two (74%) parents wanted to know "all possible risks," 26 (24%) wanted to know only "those that are likely to occur," and 3 (2%) wanted to know only about those that would "result in significant injury." Mothers were more likely to want to hear all possible risks, whereas fathers were more likely to want to know only about those that are likely to occur (P = 0.001). Otherwise, responses were not influenced by the sex of the parents, the age of the child, or whether the child or any siblings had had surgery in the past. In Part II, a separate group of 121 parents were surveyed after participating in the preanesthetic discussion with the anesthesiologist.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Aug 1993
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical TrialContinuous spinal anesthesia with a microcatheter and low-dose bupivacaine decreases the hemodynamic effects of centroneuraxis blocks in elderly patients.
This prospective randomized study was designed to investigate the hemodynamic effects and quality of continuous spinal anesthesia (CSA) after rapid injection of a low dose of 0.5% bupivacaine through a 32-gauge microcatheter. The method was compared with continuous epidural (CEA) and single-dose spinal anesthesia (SSA). Seventy-seven elderly patients (ASA II-III) ranging from 57 to 94 yr old and undergoing lower limb surgery were assigned to CSA (n = 26), CEA (n = 26), and SSA groups (n = 25). ⋯ All changes of MAP in the CEA and SSA groups were significantly larger compared with CSA group (P < 0.05). A total of seven patients in these two groups needed vasopressors due to a decrease of MAP of more than 30% from baseline values. Heart rate did not change.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)