Kognitiv återhämtning efter generell anestesi
ABSTRACTBackground: After general anesthesia the cognitive ability is temporarily impaired. Cognitive recovery is necessary for the patient to be able to assimilate the information that she / he gets postoperatively. It also increases the patient safety. There are few methods to estimate and assess the patient's cognitive recovery before and after anesthesia. The purpose of this study is to test the usefulness of the instrument PQRS and to assess the patients cognitive recovery after anesthesia. The purpose of this study is to test the usefulness of the instrument PQRS in relation to the patients cognitive recovery after anesthesia. Furthermore we analyzed if the duration of the anesthesia is of importance for cognitive recovery and we compared the nurse anesthetist's assessments of alertness to the patient?s cognitive recovery.Method: A quantitative descriptive study of patients undergoing general anesthesia. Assessment of cognitive recovery was made before anesthesia and 30 minutes and 90 minutes after awakening, using a questionnaire called the PQRS (Post-operative Quality Recovery Scale). 17 patients were enrolled. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Recovery rate is analyzed as fully or not recovered. Sensitivity was tested by means of analyzing the changes in cognitive functioning during recovery and validity by means of correlating test-results with estimated level of alertness.Results: 17 patients were enrolled and all completed the test at the three different occasions. After 90 minutes 41 % of the patients were fully recovered to baseline on all five subscales. Two of 17 patients were anesthetized less than one hour and none of the were fully recovered after 90 minutes. Only one significant correlation was found between the subscales and the anesthesia Nurses estimated level of alertness.Conclusion: PQRS instrument was useful for assessing cognitive recovery after general anesthesia. The study showed that the majority of the patients were not cognitively recovered shortly after the awakened. Anesthesia duration was no discernible variable. Alertness and cognitive recovery had no great correlationKeywords: cognitive recovery, cognitive ability, general anesthesia, PQRS