British journal of anaesthesia
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Burst suppression occurs in the EEG during coma and under general anaesthesia. It has been assumed that burst suppression represents a deeper state of anaesthesia from which it is more difficult to recover. This has not been directly demonstrated, however. Here, we test this hypothesis directly by assessing relationships between EEG suppression in human volunteers and recovery of consciousness. ⋯ These findings suggest that, in contrast to current assumptions, EEG suppression in and of itself is not an important determinant of recovery time or the degree of cognitive impairment upon emergence from anaesthesia in healthy adults.
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Cardiac output (Q˙) monitoring can support the management of high-risk surgical patients, but the pulmonary artery catheterisation required by the current 'gold standard'-bolus thermodilution (Q˙T)-has the potential to cause life-threatening complications. We present a novel noninvasive and fully automated method that uses the inspired sinewave technique to continuously monitor cardiac output (Q˙IST). ⋯ The inspired sinewave technique provides continuous and noninvasive monitoring of cardiac output, with a 'marginal-good' trending ability compared with cardiac output based on thermodilution. However, the trending ability can be reduced with increasing shunt fraction, such as in acute lung injury.