TJU/Education/Anesthesiology/Digital Library/General Anesthesia

Digital Library - General Anesthesia

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INTRODUCTION

General anesthesia is a state of drug induced coma. The components of general anesthesia include unconsciousness, amnesia, analgesia, muscle relaxation, and hemodynamic stability. Ideally, a single drug would be able to provide all of the components of anesthesia, have a rapid onset of action, a short duration of action, no side effects, and be inexpensive. Unfortunately, such a drug does not exist. As a result the majority of general anesthetics utilize the combination of several drugs, each providing one or more of the major components of general anesthesia. To understand general anesthesia it is important to have an understanding of the different types of general anesthesia, the different stages of anesthesia, basic principles of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and the pharmacology of different anesthetic agents.

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