Automated Anesthesiology
January 7, 2014 | Terry Sharrer
In January, 2011, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head by a would-be assassin. To deal with the brain swelling and intracranial hypertension, neurosurgeons put her into an induced coma with long term, round the clock nurse monitoring. She made a remarkable recovery, but could the monitoring have been just as effective or better with computer-assisted sedation? The answer is still unclear, as long term sedation drugs can be controlled continuously with computer assisted equipment, but as yet that approach does not include integrated heart and kidney monitoring which would constitute fully automated anesthesiology. MORE