What's new… Patients are listening-communication under general anesthesia

Abstract

There is ample evidence of awareness of at least some unconscious patients. A recent multicenter study found significant reductions after therapeutic communication during general anesthesia in postoperative pain and analgesic consumption, as well as in postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) and antiemetic requirements in high-risk patients. Thus, an intraoperatively presentet text represents a simple non-pharmacological method to reduce side effects of surgery and anesthesia. This also offers treatment in other unconscious patients. However, another finding seems worth noting: the results of the study cannot be explained by the known intraoperative awareness and response of individual patients. Therefore, there should be a fundamental change in the way patients are treated in the operating room and intensive care unit, and background noise and careless conversations should be eliminated. 56 years after David Cheek formulated "BE CAREFUL, THE PATIENT IS LISTENING should be engraved overthe door of every operating room, every recovery room, every intensive care unit in every hospital." after his first observations of patient perceptions, perhaps it is now time to finally heed this call and to use communication with unconscious patients that goes beyond the most necessary announcement of interventions and is therapeutically effective through positive suggestions. When in doubt, assume that the patient is listening.