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Patients Traumatized By Anesthesia Awareness Imagine going in for surgery and being able to hear and feel everything, but you can't cry out or move. It's called anesthesia awareness, and it happens more often than you think. Video: Watch Video
The mission of the Anesthesia Awareness Campaign is "to prevent patients (even one) from experiencing anesthesia awareness and its consequences through education, prevention, and empowerment by replacing ignorance or fear with knowledge." IMPORTANT NOTE: The information contained in this site represents only the experiences and views of one victim, Carol Weihrer, the research I have done and the knowledge I have gained through working with other victims, and the anesthesia, psychiatric, and legal communities. The Anesthesia Awareness Campaign, Inc., is almost always contacted when information about awareness is needed. In fact, Ms. Weihrer has become the lay expert in the field, having spoken to more victims than anyone or any organization -- physician or researcher. It is essential to seek the help of qualified professionals in addition to using the information and services offered here. Anesthesia Awareness is probably the most helpless and terrifying feeling in the world. It occurs when one is supposed to be completely asleep under full general anesthesia, but the brain is not asleep at all. Your body is almost always fully paralyzed; you have a tube down your throat; and you can't speak, breathe, or move or do anything to alert the doctors that you are awake. If you do manage to move, as I did, a disastrously common response from the anesthesiologist is to simply administer another dose or doses of paralytic drug; not considering the possibility that the patient is awake; i.e. experiencing Anesthesia Awareness. Technology is available to monitor brain activity and has been proved in multiple scientific clinical studies to reduce the current incidence of anesthesia awareness, commonly calculated to be a minimum 100 reported cases per day in the US alone, by at least 82%! This Campaign will not rest until the use of brain activity monitors is routine in all genereal anesthesia surgeries. Anesthesia Awareness has been one of the best-kept secrets in anesthesia, and was, at one time, one of the least-known phenomena in the medical or legal fields in general. As a result of the work of this Campaign, much media attention has been given to this problem, and slowly, the public is learning to be "aware of awareness." Yet recent studies indicate awareness is reported 100 times per working day, and we know that under-reportage may be as much as a third. Pediatric cases may occur 4-6 times as often. Those figures work out to a minimum 28,000 - 46,000 times per year in the US alone! From my own experience and the feedback of over 2500 phone contacts with awareness victims, it seems the anesthesia community is in deep denial of the number of times awareness occurs, frequently denies patient reports of the problem, many times fails to make the incidents known to the surgeon or other hospital caretakers, and certainly grossly underestimates the depth and the duration of the devastating psychological aftereffects of anesthesia awareness -- most often Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Anesthesia Awareness Campaign demands the ASA's awareness of awareness! In my opinion, the most prevalent cause of anesthesia awareness is lack of care and attention on the part of the anesthesiologist. In a 1999 syndicated radio interview the President of the American Society of Anesthesiologists admitted that "drugs are sometimes mislabeled or administered in the wrong order, and tanks do run dry." National Public Radio, Radio Health Network, double feature on Awareness, 1999. At present, patients seldom get to meet their anesthesiologist more than five minutes before surgery; they have no choice of doctors or any chance to check out credentials or even know whether the person administering anesthesia is an M.D. or nurse anesthetist; or whether he/she will be monitoring only your surgery, or several other surgeries at the same time. The person who actually sees to it that your vital body functions continue, the one who truly holds your life in his/her hands is less familiar to you than your hair dresser! Patients are rarely told whether they will be paralyzed during the surgery, or if and what type of monitors will be used to determine the level of consciousness of the patient. I was as awake, alert, and aware during the removal of an eye as I am now, as I write this, but I could do nothing to communicate my awareness. Neither anesthesiologist nor nursing staff acknowledged my (loud) reports of the incident upon being awakened in the OR; no counseling was offered by the hospital; access to my records was denied for an unreasonable amount of time; my account of the incident was questioned; and I now suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that has severe consequences on my daily life and has destroyed my sleep patterns for over seven years now. Years later, when I finally obtained my medical records, there was absolutely NO charting of any vital signs or medications for 2-1/2 hours of a 5-1/2 hour surgery! Potential General Anesthesia Patients WHAT CAN I DO TO PROTECT MYSELF AND MY FAMILY FROM EXPERIENCING ANESTHESIA AWARENESS? Primarily let all of the medical personnel you deal with know that you are aware of anesthesia (intraoperative) awareness. Sometimes that means acting like you know more about the problem than you do. Insist on having time with your anesthesiologist well before surgery. Think twice about using a surgical facility or hospital that does not use BIS monitoring! It is important to ask three questions: Do you have BIS monitors? and Do you use BIS monitors, and will one be used in my surgery? Ask your surgeon who will be administering anesthesia and whether he/she has ever worked with this provider before. Insist on knowing whether you will be paralyzed and if it is absolutely necessary Find out what kind of monitors will be used. Find out whether the anesthesia provider will be with you and only you the whole time. Learn about what emergency backup equipment is available. Ask when the anesthesia and other tanks were last checked and by whom. Find out what the hospital's policies are regarding patients who report anesthesia awareness. Ask if this facility follows the guidelines in the JCAHO Sentinel Event Alert #32. (L1)Be sure to ask if you will mainted the whole time of surgery by amnesic drugs, like Versed. To Whom Can Anesthesia Awareness Happen? Does My Doctor Know about Anesthesia Awareness? Hopefully more so than 7-1/2 years ago when this Campaign started its work. But there are still many doctors I have talked to who are amazed awareness occurs, and are unaware of the extent of the problem, the tremendous post-operative effects on mind and body, or the attitude of the professionals in the anesthesia field. This Campaign is working very, very hard to change "Awareness of Awareness." What Are The Effects of Anesthesia Awareness? In my case, I came out of the operating room screaming at the top of my lungs that I was awake while they took my eye out. The anesthesiologist never came to visit the recovery room; the nurses would not answer my questions about whether my awareness was recorded. The anesthesiologist, forced to visit two days later because of the surgeon's complaint, callously informed me I had had local anesthetic in addition to the (supposedly) full general anesthesia; so I could not feel pain; and therefore no harm could possibly have been done! Such denial and mistreatment are all too common when awareness occurs. The account of the victim is frequently put into question. Friends and family try to calm the patient by down-playing the reality of the event. Nightmares, flashbacks, and PTSD are common; psychiatric care is usually needed, sleep patterns change, personality changes occur, startle response is greatly exaggerated, crowds are avoided, noises become troublesom, and control becomes an over-riding life concern --and frequently, the memory never goes away. One copy of each of the Anesthesia Awareness-published materials is available free of charge to anyone requesting such information, and gives a full mailing address. MATERIALS PUBLISHED BY AND AVAILABLE THROUGH THE ANESTHESIA AWARENESS CAMPAIGN: "What is Anesthesia Awareness" http://www.anesthesiaawareness.com/index2.ivnu Add This Entry To Your CureZone Favorites! Print this pageEmail this page  Alert Webmaster
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