Home

Patient Help – intra-operative awareness

Have you or someone you know experienced awareness during surgery?

 

This horrifying experience – known in medical jargon as ‘intra-operative awareness’ – is one of the most common complications of anaesthesia.

According to the Medical Journal of Australia about 2000 patients annually have some form of awareness during surgeries performed in Australian hospitals.

The lack of technology to accurately monitor the state of the brain during anaesthesia is considered to be the main reason for over- and under-sedation.

“I felt my chest being cut open and blood being mopped away. I heard and felt the saw cutting through my chest bone,”

“I could feel every cut and saw the doctors made. I couldn’t scream out to tell.”

Norman Dalton told the UK's The Independent newspaper in 2004 in a harrowing account of his heart bypass operation.

Medical experts state that levels of awareness can vary from vague memories to the 10 per cent who can recall harrowing descriptions of exactly what happened.

"For example, during cardiac surgery people (report) feeling the surgeons sawing their chest open then feeling them putting the hooks in to pull the chest apart," states Professor Andrew Davidson

About a quarter of these extreme cases will lead to long-term post-traumatic stress disorder, causing things like nightmares, anxiety, depression and a fear of going back to the hospital.

Cortical Dynamics Ltd

Australian company, Cortical Dynamics Limited, in association with Swinburne University of Technology, with the vision to end this angst has developed a technology called the Brain Anaesthesia Response (BAR) monitoring system. 

Utilising the latest advances in our understanding of the mechanisms responsible for brain activity, the BAR monitor, a world first device, represents a revolutionary approach to processing Electroencephalogram (EEG), the recording of brain activity.

This may allow doctors to better optimise anaesthetic delivery.  It may also improve the patient experience, reduce recovery times and lower the cost of anaesthesia, creating a significant global market opportunity.

Clinical trials have unambiguously revealed that the BAR monitoring system is capable of detecting the effects of the analgesic and anaesthetic agents remifentinal and nitrous oxide, which are in widespread routine clinical use.  These agents are typically not detected by other existing EEG monitoring approaches.

We want to hear from you

Please contact us, in confidence, if you have experienced intra-operative awareness and:

  • You are willing to be interviewed by the media about your awareness experience,
  • You would be willing to participate in a research study on any aspect of awareness or it's sequelae,
  • You would like to share your story.

 

Please contact us on 1800 989 599, click here or email us at contact@corticaldynamics.com if you would like to share your experience

Patient Experiences in the media