Anesthesia

Local anesthesia is employed prior to all dental procedures. Dental procedures can be very painful. The patient often can feel dental procedures while under inhalation anesthesia.

What is a neonate or pediatric patient? Neonate patients are between 0 to 6 weeks of life and a pediatric patient is between 6 to 16 weeks of life.

Arterial hypotension is a common anesthetic complication. Perfusion of vital organs depends largely on arterial blood pressure. Mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) below 60 mmHg and systolic blood pressures below 80 mmHg can result in reduced perfusion of the vital organs. Oxygen debt can ensue in morbidity and mortality.

Maintenance of anesthesia using an inhalant agent has been associated with cardiopulmonary depression. Some small animal patients are more sensitive to the cardiopulmonary depressant effect of inhalant agents.

What is a geriatric patient? Geriatric patients are pets that have attained 75% of that species or breeds expected life span. Therefore, a 6 year old Yorkshire terrier would not be considered geriatric, but a 6 year old Irish wolfhound would fall under this definition.

There are many physiologic variables that can be monitored in anesthetized small animal patients. The major goal of monitoring an anesthetized patient is to ensure adequate oxygen delivery to the tissue. Appropriate oxygen delivery to the tissue needs the proper functioning of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

The practice of veterinary anesthesia has been impacted by the short supply of propofol and discontinued production of thiopental. Thiopental is officially in the "Discontinued Drug" list of the FDA. The company that used to make thiopental decided to stop production because of its stand against the use of this drug for lethal injections.

To safely anesthetize small animal patients with preexisting cardiac condition, it is important that specific hemodynamic goals are set for the particular heart condition. It is easy to state that for patients with cardiac problem, "heart-friendly" drugs need to be used.

The risk of anesthesia is higher in emergency cases compared with elective cases. Most of these patients are compromised and this increases the danger of anesthesia, especially in cases when there is no time to optimize the condition of the patient before anesthesia.

Exotic small mammals (formally known as pocket pets) are challenging creatures to work with. When working with dogs and cats, it is usually easy to place an intravenous catheter, intubate, provide fluid therapy, hook up an ECG, place a blood pressure cuff, and keep track of the core body temperature.

Rigid endoscopy can be performed in many reptiles by passing the endoscope through the oral cavity and into the stomach. Endoscopy is primarily used to obtain gastric biopsies or to retrieve foreign bodies from the stomach.

You can reduce your patients' potential for problems by staying clear of these common pitfalls.

Common errors associated with improper sample collection and storage.

Which agents are good choices for use in regional nerve blocks?

Local anesthetics were once a mainstay of pain management in veterinary medicine, and may now be one of the most under-utilized modalities. Administered locally or regionally, they are the only modality that renders complete anesthesia to a site, i.e. no transmission of nociceptive impulses as long as the drug exerts its effect.

The endocrine systems throughout the body play crucial rolls in the maintenance and metabolism that are required to maintain health. Perturbations in many of these symptoms occur in dogs and cats and veterinarians are often required to diagnose and treat these conditions that may last throughout the lifetime of a pet.

Cardiac diseases occur frequently in small animal patients. It is often necessary to anesthetize these animals for routine procedures (dental prophylaxis, OVH, neuter), emergency procedures (GDV, fracture repair) or for the cardiac condition itself (PDA correction, balloon valvuloplasty, pacemaker implantation).

Anesthetized patients should be continuously monitored. To augment the anesthetist's senses, electronic monitors have been developed to allow for a more precise picture of a patient's status.

Veterinary patients can present for a variety of diseases that impact the neurological system. These patients can require anesthesia for stabilization, diagnostic procedures, or surgical correction of these diseases.

Over the past two decades, technologies have developed to allow for rapid and continuous determination of many physiologic parameters in anesthetized and critical care patients. Two of the most important modalities are pulse oximetry and capnometry.

There is no such thing as completely safe anesthesia. Anesthesia complications can occur that can compromise a patient's health and even result in death. Many anesthetic complications and accidents can be minimized or avoided with proper knowledge and avoidance techniques and vigilant patient preparation and monitoring.

Pain management in small animal medicine is one of the fastest growing areas of revenue. Veterinarians should be knowledgeable about pain management because not only is it good medicine, clients think we already know about it and are doing something for their pets, our technicians are talking to each other about pain and our treatment of it.

Although age itself is not a disease, advanced age can be a predictor for increased risk of certain disease conditions. Additionally, as our patients age, normal changes occur in their physiology that can change their responses to anesthesia and analgesic medications as well as potentially put them at higher risk of peri-anesthetic complications.

Anesthesia of the pregnant dog or cat falls into two categories, anesthesia of a pregnant animal for a procedure unrelated to the pregnancy and anesthesia of a pregnant animal specifically for a problem related to the pregnancy/cesarean section. Anesthesia of a pregnant animal for procedures unrelated to the pregnancy is often not problematic unless the animal is in a compromised state.

Help clients understand exactly what's involved before their pet undergoes a surgical or dental procedure.

Dr. Mark Epstein reviews local blocks and strategies for effective administration.

In this online on-demand archived Webinar, Fred Metzger, DVM, DABVP, discusses preanesthetic testing best practices and the medically sound reasons for same-day, fasted results to minimize risks, protect your patients against adverse anesthetic events and speed up patient recovery time. (1 CE credit)

Which local anesthetic is best for shorter surgical procedures?

Dr. John Dodam outlines necessary considerations when dealing with the anesthetization of pregnant animals.

Systemic administration of analgesic agents is the most common route of delivery during the perioperative period. These routes would include delivery by transdermal, subcutaneous, intramuscular, intra-articular and intravenous. Intravenous administration of analgesic agents may be timed to be given intermittently or by constant rate infusion.