Paediatric anaesthesia
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Jul 2008
Wet forced-air warming blankets are ineffective at maintaining normothermia.
Forced-air warming systems have proven effective in preventing perioperative hypothermia. To date, reported adverse events relate primarily to overheating and thermal injuries. This study uses a simple model to show that forced-air warming blankets become ineffective if they get wet. ⋯ A wet forced-air warming blanket is ineffective at maintaining normothermia. Once wet, the warming blanket resulted in cooling similar to the control group.
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Intraoperative awareness is an anesthesia complication and occurs when a patient becomes conscious during a procedure performed under general anesthesia and subsequently has recall of these events. Awareness is well described phenomenon in adults, with an incidence of 0.1-0.2 % for low-risk surgical procedures. ⋯ However, causes and the long-term psychological impact of awareness in children are unknown. We report on two cases of intraoperative awareness in children in an attempt to throw further light on this complex problem.