Principles of Anaesthetics and Pharmacology Flashcards
What are the different kinds of anaesthesia?
- General
- Produces insensbility in the whole body, usually causing unconsciousness
- Centrally acting drugs – hypnotics/analgesics
- Regional
- Producing insensibility in an area or region of the body
- Local anaesthetics applied to nerves supplying relevant area
- Local
- Producing insensibility to only the relevant part of the body
- Local anaesthetics applied directly to the tissue
What is anaesthesia?
Anaesthesia = insensibility
What is general anaesthesia?
- Produces insensbility in the whole body, usually causing unconsciousness
- Centrally acting drugs – hypnotics/analgesics
What is regional anaesthesia?
- Producing insensibility in an area or region of the body
- Local anaesthetics applied to nerves supplying relevant area
What is local anaesthesia?
- Producing insensibility to only the relevant part of the body
- Local anaesthetics applied directly to the tissue
What are different types of drugs used in anaesthesia?
- Inhalation anaesthetics
- Intravenous anaesthetics
- Muscle relaxants
- Local anaesthetics
- Analgesics
What are some different techniques and equipment used in anaesthesia?
- Tracheal intubation
- Ventilation
- Fluid therapy
- Regional anaesthesia
- Monitoring
What are some of the functions of the modern anaesthetic machine?
- Regulation of fresh gases and mixing to deliver precise concentrations of gaseous agents
- Addition of precise concentrations of inhaled anaesthetics gases
- CO2 removal to allow recirculation of inhaled gases
- Mechanical ventilation, now microprocessor controlled contained within machine
- Most monitoring now normally integrated into anaesthetic machine
What is the operative and anaesthetic mortality rate?
- Operative mortality 1:25 (4%)
- Anaesthetic mortality 1:400,000 (0.00024%)
What system is used to assess anaesthesia patients?
ASA system
What are the biggest drivers for improved safety in anaesthesia?
- Training of specialist anaesthetists
- Modern anaesthetic drugs and techniques
- Modern monitoring standards and equipment
What are the 3 components of anaesthesia (triad of anaesthesia?
- Hyponosis
- Unconsciousness
- Analgesia
- Pain relief
- Relaxation
- Skeletal muscle relaxation to provide immobility and permit artificial ventilation
Balanced anaesthesia uses different drugs for different jobs, what are advantages and problems with this?
- Advantages:
- Avoid over-dosage
- Great flexibility
- Since titrated doses separately is more accurate to requirements
- Problems
- Polypharmacy – chance of drug reactions/allergies
- Muscle relaxation – problems controlling airway
- Separation of relaxation and hypnosis – “awareness”, possibility of patient being awake yet paralysed and unable to communicate
What are the effects of general anaesthesia?
- Hypnosis (mainly)
- Cerebral functions lost from most complex functions to primitive functions being lost later (such as reflexes) – higher doses required to affect these primitive functions
- Relaxation
- Analgesia (barely any)
What is the mode of action of general anaesthesia?
- Open chlorine channels to hyperpolarise neurons making them less likely to fire
What is the adminstration of general anaesthesia?
- IV
- Allosteric binding to GABA receptors, opening chloride channels
- Rapid onset, rapid recovery due to redistributing to other areas of the body such as muscle and fat
- Concentration builds up slower in fat and muscle due to them having less blood supple than viscera
- Inhalation
- Dissolve in membranes having direct physical effect – uptake and excretion via lungs using partial pressures lungs > blood > brain
- MAC = minimum alveolar concentration, measure of potency with low number being a high potency
- Onset of action is slow, effect lasts longer, awakening requires stopping inhalation agent or wash out (reversal of concentration gradient)
- Can be monitored better than IV by using inhalation and exhalation
- Most anaesthesia is IV induction then inhalation maintenance
What is the mode of action of IV GA?
- Allosteric binding to GABA receptors, opening chloride channels