Philadelphia Personal Injury Attorney Blog | Pomerantz Perlberger & Lewis LLP

Anesthesia awareness is when a patient comes to awareness during his or her surgery. These patients experience a horrific tragedy: they can see, hear, and even feel everything that happens during their operation, but they cannot move. Patients who awaken during surgery often suffer terrible, enduring pain. They may be awake for minutes or even hours during a long surgery, and during this time they feel every tug, every stitch, every cut and probe of the surgery. They also feel a terrible powerlessness as a result of their paralysis that makes the experience deeply traumatic. A number of sufferers of anesthesia awareness have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that endures decades after the event.

Anesthesia awareness is often the result of medical negligence, including:

· A medication not being given

· Too little medication being given

· Wrong medication being given

Modern anesthesia is not normally a single compound, but is usually a cocktail of different medications. In the case of anesthesia awareness, the drug that paralyzes a patient is effective, but other medications are ineffective or not given. Sometimes, however, the cause of anesthesia awareness is unknown, similar to waking paralysis, whose mechanism is explained but its cause unknown.

In some cases, brain wave monitors can detect anesthesia awareness, but in other cases, they are ineffective. The best prevention for anesthesia awareness is thoroughness and good procedure on the part of the surgeon and anesthesiologist.

If you have suffered anesthesia awareness as a result of the negligence of your anesthesiologist and/or surgeon, contact the experienced medical malpractice lawyers at Pomerantz, Perlberger, and Lewis, LLP today for a free initial consultation.