What Are The Types Of General Anesthesia?

General anesthesia is a type of pharmaceutical product that doctors use in an operating room to induce anesthesia. This condition is characterized by a progressive and controlled depression of the functions of the central nervous system.

When people have been given different types of general anesthesia, they lose consciousness. In addition, they do not respond to painful stimulants. Depending on the effect that the doctors want to achieve, they use different types of general anesthetics. However, they usually achieve similar results.

For example, consider the following consequences:

• insensitivity to pain
• loss of reflexes
• complete amnesia about everything that happened during surgery

• skeletal muscle relaxation
• loss of consciousness

In general, all of these effects come from different areas of the central nervous system. To obtain them all with just one drug, doctors would need very high concentrations. That’s why they use combinations. This prevents irreversible problems with vital parts of the brain.

Features of General Anesthesia

Much progress has been made in anesthesiology. However, scientists still do not know exactly which structures are affected and which molecules these drugs act on. Yet they know that they cause sedation and hypnosis. This happens because they profoundly alter various processes and pathways.

In general, there are some scientific hypotheses about how they work, namely:

• General anesthesia produces an unspecified action on the properties of the neuronal membrane.
• The Meyer and Overton lipid theory states that these drugs act on lipid targets (Spanish link) or fats. The efficacy thus depends on their solubility in fats.
• They are drugs that also act on protein receptors or ion channels.
• Voltage-gated channels and ligand-dependent ion channels are also involved in the functioning.

Doctors should assess them three factors when administering general anesthesia, which are the following:

• how quickly you get the anesthesia
• the duration of a given dose

• the potency, depth and intensity of anesthesia

Vapor Anesthetics

This type of medicine consists of a substance that causes general anesthesia when inhaled through the airways. In addition, they are not irritating drugs. Also, they are usually used to maintain anesthesia along with intravenous inducers.

Thus, the potency of vaporous anesthetics actually depends on the partial pressure or voltage that the anesthetic reaches the brain. In general, the partial pressure in the blood is estimated.

Some examples of these vaporous anesthetics include:

• nitrogen protoxide
• halothane
• isoflurane
• desflurane
• sevoflurane

These are all absorbed and break through the mucous membranes until they reach the brain. Then this absorption or diffusion normally occurs in three phases:

• Lung inhalation phase. The less soluble species will have a fast induction rate. The more soluble varieties provide a slower sedation.
• Spread in the tissues.
• Elimination.

Intravenous Anesthetics

On the other hand, there are general anesthetics that doctors administer through the veins. Here the goal is to induce and maintain anesthesia during surgery. These are substances with, among other things, the following properties:

• hypnotic
• analgesic
• anxiolytic
• muscle relaxant

Intravenous anesthesia facilitates the rapid induction of anesthesia. However, it is not as easy to control as general vapor anesthesia. Healthcare professionals use the minimum infusion rate (MIR) to calculate the requirements for clinical anesthesia.

In general, some examples of intravenous general anesthesia include:

• sodium thiopentality

• propofol
• etomidate
• ketamine

Overall, all of these drugs can cause a range of side effects. These include:

• respiratory depression
• apnea
• muscle stiffness
• blurry sight
• mood swings

General anesthesia as a medical procedure

Overall, general anesthesia is a delicate process. Therefore, only trained experts should perform it. They have to be very careful about the drug they are taking and the dose they are administering. Abuse can lead to serious harm to the patient.

Today we have a wide variety of general anesthesia. This allows doctors to reduce the side effects and risks they often bring.