The Joint Commission
Thursday 1:54 CST, February 23, 2012

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Sentinel Event Alert, Issue 32: Preventing, and managing the impact of, anesthesia awareness

October 6, 2004
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sea 32 anesthesiaAnesthesia awareness, also called unintended intraoperative awareness, occurs under general anesthesia when a patient becomes cognizant of some or all events during surgery or a procedure, and has direct recall of those events. Because of the routine use of neuromuscular blocking agents (also called paralytics) during general anesthesia, the patient is often unable to communicate with the surgical team if this occurs.

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