Surgical Care

Preoperative Management

Types of anesthesia

During surgery, you will be given some form of anesthesia -- medicine for the relief of pain. The type and dosage of anesthesia is administered by the anesthesiologist. When a patient faces surgery, he or she will meet with the anesthesiologist before the procedure. The anesthesiologist will review the patient's medical condition and history to plan the appropriate anesthetic for surgery.

There are various forms of anesthesia. The type of anesthesia you will receive will depend on the type of surgery and your medical condition. Usually, an anesthesiologist will administer a sedative in addition to the anesthetic. The different types of anesthesia are as follows:

local anesthesia - local anesthesia is medicine given to temporarily stop the sensation of pain in a particular area of the body. A patient remains conscious during a local anesthetic. For minor surgery, a local anesthetic can be administered via injection to the site. However, when a large area needs to be numbed, or if a local anesthetic injection will not penetrate deep enough, doctors may resort to regional anesthetics.
regional anesthesia - regional anesthesia means numbing only the portion of the body which will be operated on. Usually an injection of local anesthetic is given in the area of nerves that provide feeling to that part of the body. There are several forms of regional anesthetics, two of which are described below:
- spinal anesthetic - often used for lower abdominal, pelvic, rectal or lower extremity surgery. An anesthetic is injected into the fluid in the spinal canal.
- epidural anesthetic - this anesthetic is similar to a spinal anesthetic and also is commonly used for surgery of the lower limbs. It is also very popular as an anesthetic during labor. A thin catheter is placed in the "epidural" space, which is in the middle and lower back, just outside of the spinal space.
general anesthesia - general anesthesia causes a patient to be unconscious during surgery. The medicine is either inhaled through a breathing mask or tube, or administered through an intravenous line -- a thin plastic tube inserted into a vein (usually in the patient's forearm). A breathing tube may be inserted into the windpipe to maintain proper breathing during surgery. Once the surgery is complete, the anesthesiologist ceases the anesthetic and the patient wakes up in the recovery room.

This page was last updated on: November 8, 2007.

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