Blocking out OR sounds with simple wax earplugs can help patients forget the noise, nudging and prodding of surgery, according to a study published in the Italian journal Minerva Anestesiologica.
Elective spine surgery patients who had earplugs inserted by an anesthesia provider before the operation and received bispectral (BIS) guided sedation with a BIS score of 70 were less likely to recall the procedure than patients without earplugs, Austrian researchers found. More than half (56%) of the patients without earplugs experienced some recall of the procedure, while only 16% of the patients with earplugs had any recall, according to the findings, which were published online in April.
In the study, the researchers from the Medical University of Vienna also looked at the propofol requirement for maintaining sedation in the 2 study groups. They didn't find any difference in the amount of propofol needed to keep patients at 70 BIS between the earplug group and the non-earplug group.
On the other hand, a previous study has shown that music can reduce both induction time and the amount of propofol needed to maintain sedation.
Finally, although awareness did occur in some of the patients studied, the authors say it's possible to mitigate its unpleasant effects by warning patients about this complication ahead of time. In their study, none of the patients who recalled the procedure had unpleasant memories. "Patients were informed pre-operatively in detail that awareness was likely to occur," they write. "Therefore, intraoperative awakening was less frightening than it might have been for uninformed patients."
Kent Steinriede
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