Tailor-made Anesthesia

Deepen your understanding about Adequacy of Anesthesia

The Adequacy of Anesthesia (AoA) concept signals Datex-Ohmeda’s commitment to provide the best and most complete range of clinical parameters to ensure tailor-made anesthesia for each and every patient.

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Adequate anesthesia results from a balance of various components. Therefore, it needs to be assessed with more than just one parameter. Datex-Ohmeda provides all parameters on one screen, a tool to simplify the complexity of ensuring adequate anesthesia.

Cortical components

The cortical components refer to the effects of anesthetic agents in the brain, particularly in the cerebral cortex where cognitive processes take place.

Unconsciousness refers to the lack of awareness of the outside world, that is to say the patient is asleep during general anesthesia.

It is also imperative that the patient does not have memory recollections of the events during the operation. Loss of memory, amnesia, is usually achieved with lower drug concentrations than loss of consciousness.

M-ENTROPY provides a quick and easy way to assess the momentary effect of anesthetics on the patient’s central nervous system (CNS). This means that Entropy may be used as an aid in monitoring the effects of certain anesthetics according to individual response and needs.

Subcortical components

The subcortical components ensure painlessness and immobility of the patient, and at the same time maintain autonomic stability.

Antinociception refers to inhibition of the nociceptive processing in the nervous system. Analgesia is the treatment to provide antinociception. In common terms, people often refer to antinociception as analgesia (pain relief). Pain, however, is a subjective matter and only a conscious person can express how much or how little it hurts.

Traditionally the anesthesiologist draws conclusions from observing the patient’s vital signs, such as an increase in heart rate and blood pressure. However, these are not always reliable measures, for example due to unstable cardiovascular function.

One of the objectives of general anesthesia is to ensure immobility, i.e. to maintain a stable surgical field.

Whenever neuromuscular blocking agents are used, modern practice monitors the level of neuromuscular block using a peripheral nerve stimulator. Today’s technology allows for an objective and quantitative assessment of muscle response, making it possible to maintain a steady blockade and to ensure safe restoration of muscle strength during emergence from general anesthesia. For easy and automatic monitoring of muscle response, Datex-Ohmeda offers the M-NMT module.

Autonomic stability means the absence of excessive hemodynamic responses. Sudden hemodynamic changes may increase the workload of the patient’s heart, lead to cardiac oxygen deficiency, and in the worst case trigger an infarct. For monitoring autonomic stability Datex-Ohmeda offers a wide range of parameters in various configurations from basic SpO2 and NIBP monitoring up to 12-lead ECG and invasive pressures.

Last updated: 1 September 2003Created
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