Guedel's Four Stages Of General Anesthesia

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General Anesthesia is the administration of general anesthetic agents that make a person unconscious and unable to feel pain often used during operative procedures, attempts to make anesthesia were common in China and Babylonia but it was until major scientific advancements were made in the late 19th century and the discovery of the germ theory of disease that antiseptic technique began to develop. Gradually a better understanding of physiology eventually led to more effective means of controlling of pain and the development of General anesthesia.
Anesthesia is a way to control pain during surgery or procedure by using a medicine called anesthetics that can help control a person´s breathing, blood pressure, blood flow and heart rate .In addition,
General anesthesia is considered to be safe because of modern safety standards and equipment. In 1937, Arthur Ernest Guedel classified the four stages of anesthesia, stage 1: Induction, the patient can talk but slowly lose consciousness, stage 2: excitement, the patient completely loses consciousness and may experience and irregular heart rate, stage 3: surgical anesthesia, the skeletal muscles begin to relax and eye movement stop, stage 4: overdose, at this stage too much medication has been administered and the patient experiences severe brain stem or medullary depression, which can be fatal without support. There are three basic types of anesthesia, General anesthesia that produces a loss of sensation throughout the entire body, Regional anesthesia that produces a loss of sensation to a specific region of the body and Local anesthesia that produces a loss of sensation to a small specific area of the body. The procedures that require General anesthesia include those that take a long time, are too painful, or the procedures that
The risk depends on the type of anesthesia the patients gets, their age, health, medicines, and whether if they smoke or drink alcohol beverages which also increases their chances of problems. But, for the most part healthy adults should not have any issues with anesthesia apart from some mild and temporary symptoms, rarely general anesthesia can cause lung infections, stroke, heart attack and even death. Some of the health conditions or factors that increase the risks complications include smoking, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart conditions. In fact, researches of the University of Bordeaux, France reported that elderly people who undergo general anesthesia have a 35% higher risk of eventually developing dementia. Also, The Major Clinic reported that children who undergo General Anesthesia many times are more likely to develop ADHA

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