What does anaesthesia mean?
The word anaesthesia, like many medical terms, comes from the Greek and translates as insensibility. During operations in particular, anaesthetists ensure that patients do not feel the procedure. Although there were already ways of providing local anaesthesia using herbs in ancient times, modern anaesthesia began on 30 March 1842, when the American doctor Crawford Williamson Long performed the first known ether anaesthesia.
Modern drugs and procedures
Today, anaesthesia involves not only painlessness, but also unconsciousness ("sleep"), the elimination of muscle function (muscle relaxation) and reflexes. Anaesthetists have modern drugs and procedures at their disposal for this purpose, with which anaesthesia can be very individually controlled and carried out with the greatest possible safety for the patient. In a detailed preliminary consultation, usually on the day before the operation, the anaesthetist asks for all the information that is important for the anaesthetic, such as previous illnesses, age, nicotine and alcohol consumption and medication taken. Together with the patient's medical history, the type and amount of anaesthetic used is determined individually for each patient. During the operation, the anaesthetist accompanies and monitors the patient and controls the anaesthetic so that the patient wakes up from the anaesthetic at the end of the operation.
In addition to general anaesthesia, local anaesthesia is also used for some procedures. In these regional anaesthesias, special measures and medication are used to specifically switch off nerves or nerve bundles. A well-known example is regional anaesthesia close to the spinal cord, called peridural anaesthesia, which can be used during childbirth, for example.
However, anaesthetists and specially trained nursing staff are also responsible for monitoring freshly operated patients in the recovery room or - after major surgery or in the case of critical health conditions - in the intensive care unit.
Pain therapy
As part of pain therapy, the anaesthetists ensure that patients are not in pain after the operation and can recover well from the procedure. The anaesthetists are also experts in the treatment of all other pain conditions. The Department of Anaesthesiology at Ulm University Hospital has been running an outpatient pain clinic since 1979. A separate four-bed unit for the inpatient treatment of chronic pain patients completes the range of services. Patients with painful tumours, degenerative diseases of the skeletal system, nerve pain, persistent headaches or pain caused by circulatory disorders are among those treated.
