Lecture 25- Anaesthetics Flashcards
For patients undergoing surgical or medical procedures, different levels of sedation can provide important benefits to facilitate procedural interventions. These levels of sedation range from anxiolysis to general anesthesia and can create:
- Sedation and reduced anxiety
- Lack of awareness and amnesia
- Skeletal muscle relaxation
- Suppression of undesirable reflexes
- Analgesia
Because no single agent provides all desired objectives….
Anaesthetic techniques can be combines
several categories of drugs are combined to produce the optimum level of sedation required

Preoperative medications provide
anxiolysis and analgesia and mitigate unwanted side effects of the anesthetic or the procedure itself
name 4 preoperative medications

neuromuscular junction blockers enable
endotracheal intubation and muscle relaxation to facilitate surgery.
name 5 analgesics
- acetaminophen
- celexocib
- gabapentin
- ketamine
- opioids
Potent general anesthetic medications are delivered via
inhalation and/or intravenously.
Except for nitrous oxide, inhaled anesthetics are…
inhaled anesthetics are volatile, halogenated hydrocarbons
while intravenous (IV) anesthetics consist of
consist of several chemically unrelated drug classes commonly used to rapidly induce and/or maintain a state of general anesthesia.
name 4 inhaled (volatile) general anaesthetics
- desflurane
- isoflurane
- NO
- sevoflurane
name 4 IV general anaesthetics

local anaesthetics can be
amides or esters

Overall considerations when delivering an anesthetic.

levels of sedation
evels of sedation start with light sedation (anxiolysis) and continue to moderate sedation, then deep sedation, and finally a state of general anesthesia. The hallmarks of escalation from one level to the next are recognized by changes in mentation, hemodynamic stability, and respiratory competency
what is general anaesthesisa
a reversible state of central nervous system (CNS) depression, causing loss of response to and perception of stimuli. The state of general anesthesia can be divided into three stages:
- induction
- maintenance
- recovery.
Induction of general anaesthetics is…..
the time from administration of a potent anesthetic to development of unconsciousness,
- General anesthesia in adults is normally induced with an IV agent like propofol, producing unconsciousness in 30 to 40 seconds.
- Often, an IV neuromuscular blocker such as rocuronium, vecuronium, or succinylcholine is administered to facilitate endotracheal intubation by eliciting muscle relaxation.
maintenance of anaesthesia is…
the sustained period of general anesthesia.
recovery of anaesthesia starts…
After cessation of the maintenance anesthetic drug, the patient is evaluated for return of consciousness.
Inhaled gases are used primarily for
maintenance of anesthesia after administration of an IV drug
inhalation anaesthetics include
nitrous oxide and volatile, halogenated hydrocarbons.
potency in anaestheticsw
MAC is the
median effective dose (ED50) of the anesthetic, expressed as the percentage of gas in a mixture required to achieve that effect.
The more lipid soluble an anesthetic, the
lower the concentration needed to produce anesthesia and, therefore, the higher the potency










