Anesthesia awareness

Common card · No. 345396

Awareness under anesthesia, also referred to as intraoperative awareness or accidental awareness during general anesthesia (AAGA), is a rare complication of general anesthesia wherein patients regain varying levels of consciousness during their surgical procedures without becoming aggressive or dangerous. While anesthesia awareness is possible without resulting in any long-term memory of the experience, it is also possible for victims to have awareness with explicit recall, where they can remember the events related to their surgery (intraoperative awareness with explicit recall). Intraoperative awareness with explicit recall is an infrequent condition with potentially devastating psychological consequences. While it has gained popular recognition in the press, research shows that it occurs at an incidence rate of only 0.1–0.2%. Patients report a variety of experiences, ranging from vague, dreamlike states to being fully awake, immobilized, and in pain from the surgery. Intraoperative awareness...

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