Before anaesthesia, sedating a patient was a very difficult and tedious task. The sedating agents like chloroform were dangerous and had long-term side effects. Anaesthesia made sedation easy but it still required high accuracy in terms of dosage and monitoring.
With the use of anaesthesia machines, sedating patients became easier. The electrical and computer controlled components of anaesthesia machines offered accuracy in dosage distribution and sedation monitoring.
Anaesthesia became an important tool in the fight against the novel coronavirus. Patients who need endo-tracheal intubation were given general anaesthesia before the procedure to suppress the gag reflex without feeling pain. However, with more Covid-19 patients’ influx than ventilators available in intensive care units, many doctors repurposed anaesthesia machines to help patients breathe. This increased the demand for anaesthesia machines across the globe. According to a report by Future Market Insights, the anaesthesia machines market grew at 5.7% CAGR and is projected to achieve sales of US$ 2.4 Bn by the end of 2027.
In this blog we discuss how anaesthesia machine is making surgeries less painful and enabling better patient care in post pandemic world.
Repurposed anaesthesia machines saving lives of critically ill patients
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the functioning of the healthcare sector. It exposed the unhealthy ratio of number of health care systems to the number of people seeking treatment for various ailments.
The growing number of patients requiring intensive care and ventilation during pandemic, coupled with the elderly population suffering from pre-existing chronic ailments put tremendous pressure on the hospital resources.
As people suffering from chronic ailments were more prone to getting infected by the virus, the number of pneumonia cases increased significantly especially among elderly.
In certain pneumonia cases, patients were in unbearable pain due to respiratory system failure.
Though it was not a recommended procedure, medical experts and doctors used modified anaesthesia machines to treat critically ill patients who were in desperate need of ventilator.
The modified anaesthesia machine mixed various medical gases with extreme precision to ensure that the patient is pain-free and immobile during intubation and treatment. This advance machine continuously combines and delivers the following gases for general anaesthesia:
- Life-sustaining oxygen
- Nitrous Oxide, a safe and rapidly absorbed inhalant sedative.
- Anaesthetics such as isoflurane, sevoflurane, desflurane, and halothane
- Medical Air
Pressure transducers, flow meters, vaporizers, and other instruments ensured proper mixing and introduction of gases. Once the procedure was completed or as patient recovered, the mixture was administered in a controlled manner as the patient regains consciousness.
Modern anaesthesia machines to make chronic pain manageable
Although anaesthesia is given by doctors and anaesthetists, the complications that can arise from giving less or more anaesthesia can cause immense pain to the patients. Thus, hospitals are showing greater inclination towards adopting technologically advanced anaesthesia machines.
These machines allow pain-free administration of anaesthetics and oxygenation process which is otherwise a painful procedure. Health care systems are leveraging the use of anaesthesia machines by integrating them with EEG and saturation machines. These machines give real time results to the anaesthetist. This helps the concerned person to administer the correct dosage of anaesthesia.
Scientists are working on miniaturising anaesthesia machine to the size of microchips. These advance micro anaesthesia delivery devices can be inserted in the nerves and depending upon the requirement will delivery dose of anaesthesia in the body. This will make chronic pain management fairly easy.
What features make anaesthesia machines so popular in medical community?
- Portability and miniaturisation of anaesthesia machines are playing a key role in the increasing adoption of the same in the healthcare sector. In spite of the decrease in size, anaesthesia machines deliver correct variable and flow rate.
- Anaesthesia machines can be customised according to the demand of the end user. Manufactures of anaesthesia machines are offering split-screens that have the ability to display spirometry loop, EP and EEG at the same time.
- Anaesthesia machines have an in built alarm systems that are categorised in the form of colour and audio tone.
- The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) has augmented the use of anaesthesia machines. A