“Does anesthesia cause respiratory depression?”
My 72 year old father will go under anesthesia. I want to know if anesthesia causes respiratory depression?
4 Answers
Absolutely.
By virtue of their desired clinical effect, almost all anesthetics and sedatives cause respiratory depression. An exception is local anesthetics. This is why anesthesiologists are the ones who administer these medications. The degree of respiratory depression is dose-dependant and varies among different medications and medication types.
It depends entirely on the type of anesthesia. Opioid pain meds like morphine all cause some respiratory depression, which is why patients need to be monitored postoperatively if this type of med is used for pain control. Spinal anesthesia, and other blocks cause numbness but usually not respiratory depression
Respiratory depression is part of anesthesia side effects. When we give general anesthesia, we also induce respiratory depression and just intubate and ventilate. It's also a complication of IV sedation. But we are prepared to deal with this.
