Ketamine is used frequently as an adjunct for general anaesthesia, exerting analgesic and opioid-sparing properties at lower doses and psychotomimetic effects at higher doses. All dose ranges may have effects on the incidence of postoperative delirium, but clinical trials have been equivocal. We hypothesised that intra-operative low-dose ketamine is associated with a lower risk of postoperative...
AnaesthesiaNovember 2013P Aceto, C Lai, V Perilli et al.
The aim of this study was to investigate whether auditory presentation of a story during general anaesthesia might influence stress hormone changes and thus affecting dream recall and/or implicit memory. One hundred and ten patients were randomly assigned either to hear a recording of a story through headphones or to have routine care with no auditory recording while undergoing laparoscopic...
This randomised double-blind field study compared 400 anaesthetics using diazepam (0, 0.025, 0.5, 0.1, 0.175 mg.kg-1) with ketamine (1 mg.kg-1) and fentanyl (1 microg.kg-1) in Melanesian patients. Dreams were very common and generally positive in nature. A minimum of 0.1 mg.kg-1 of diazepam was needed to significantly reduce dreaming when compared with water (67.5% vs. 94.6%; p < 0.0001), and...
AnaesthesiaMarch 1, 2002A Bedi, C McCarroll, J M Murray et al.
This study reports the subjective, psychomotor and physiological properties of subanaesthetic concentrations of xenon. Ten healthy male volunteers received either xenon or nitrous oxide in a randomised crossover study design. The subjects breathed either xenon (Xe) or nitrous oxide (N2O) from a closed circuit breathing system, according to a randomised, double-blind protocol. The concentration...
The effect of different nitrous oxide concentrations on the performance of psychomotor tests (inspection time, tapping frequency, critical flicker fusion, picture memory and time sense) was investigated in seven healthy volunteers. The results show a dose-related impairment of memory, a reduction in tapping frequency and an increase in inspection time. A paradoxical increase in critical...
Summary A patient was admitted with hyperthermia, muscle rigidity, rhabdomyolysis and disseminated intravascular coagulation. He was initially thought to have taken 3,4‐methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ‘Ecstasy’), but subsequent toxicology revealed the presence of 3,4‐methylenedioxyethamphetamine (MDEA, ‘Eve’), its sister drug, in his blood. Subsequent in vitro testing for malignant...
An overdose of the semisynthetic, hallucinogenic amphetamine 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine resulted in convulsions, hyperthermia, hyperkalaemia and rhabdomyolysis. The patient's management, which included the use of dantrolene, is discussed.