Anesthesia is a medical treatment that helps alleviate the pain felt by a patient during surgery. It aims to lessen, if not prevent, the painful sensation and discomfort that would normally be felt in any operational procedure. According to experts, anesthesia consists of three key components, namely:
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- Analgesia, which is pain reduction or elimination
- Amnesia, or temporary unconsciousness
- Muscle relaxation
Anesthesia is mainly used for major surgical operations. Yet, it still can serve many other purposes than just this. This medication is also administered for certain procedures that are noninvasive, yet can still prove to be an uncomfortable experience for a patient. For instance, anesthesia can be used for magnetic resonance imaging for children or claustrophobic patients.
The different types of anesthesia
There are several medications that are used by anesthesiologists, often in different combinations as well. Nevertheless, there are four main types of anesthetic medicines that are categorized based on their focus of care.
General anesthesia is administered to put the recipient in an unconscious state before operational procedures, such as a laparoscopic hernia repair. When under the effects of general anesthesia, a patient’s breathing is controlled and monitored by the anesthesiologist.
Sedation anesthesia is given to patients during less invasive procedures, such as endoscopies and colonoscopies. Know, however, that this anesthetic only induces moderate sedation to the patient, and they are still able to breathe independently.
Local anesthesia is administered by way of injecting the medication into the surgical area. The patient will remain awake, and its purpose is to numb the area before the surgical procedure is executed so that the patient won’t feel pain.
Regional anesthesia is given to a patient with the purpose of numbing a larger section of the body, but the patient still remains conscious. A good example of this is an epidural, where the patient needs to be awake, but the discomfort is greatly reduced.
How does anesthesia work?
Generally, anesthetics render a part of the body numb, and the patient is often left unconscious for practitioners to perform an incision or surgery without causing discomfort to the patient. Specifically, however, there is little known about the way anesthesia works. Nevertheless, scientists have had a breakthrough in studying how anesthetics affect certain molecular structures in cells.
By far and large, researchers concur that the medicine target proteins in the membranes around nerve cells. Yet, it still is left to be discovered as intravenous anesthetics induce different effects when compared to inhaled ones, leading scientists to the hypothesis that they each target different protein sets.
The future of anesthesiology
The discoveries and knowledge about anesthesia are still coming and expanding. Even today, scientists are still making sense of the way that the medication works at its basic core. Experts are now aiming to have a better grasp of what certain types of anesthetic drugs are better and suitable for different groups.
Researchers are also exerting continuous efforts in attempts to uncover how anesthesia affects pain and consciousness among patients. This effort can one day lead to new treatments and medications for conditions that are related to cognitive functions, such as epilepsy or coma.
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