Clinton Parkway

Anesthesia Safety

At CPAH, safe anesthesia, continuous patient monitoring, patient warmth and patient comfort are a priority. We have the latest in anesthetic monitoring and warming equipment including end tidal CO2, oxygen saturation, blood pressure monitors, EKG’s and forced air warming units.

CPAH Anesthesia Goal:
(in order of importance)

1. Certified technician with your pet under anesthesia 100% of the time—priceless!
2. Warm, comfortable and pain free.
3. Intravenous fluids for longer procedures and for all older patients. IV fluids prevent hypotension and improve circulation.
4. End tidal CO2
5. Blood pressure
6. Pulse oximetry
7. ECG

Why it’s important to manage your pet’s pain?

Pain management is very important at Clinton Parkway Animal Hospital. Our Pain Management Guidelines will improve the recovery process, whether from illness, surgery or injury.

Anesthesia Monitoring:

We would like to introduce you to some of the new technologies at CPAH that have made anesthesia safe for your pet — it is part of our commitment to provide the best health care possible. These monitoring devices help us recognize and avoid anesthetic problems. Each monitoring system is programmed to detect any small change from normal levels, allowing us to respond before problems develop.

• End-Tidal CO2 — an exciting new technology that measures CO2 in the exhaled breath non-invasively. The machine takes a sampling of your pets exhaled air and analyzes it for carbon dioxide. If your pet’s breathing is too slow or too shallow the carbon dioxide will start rising. This is a much better way of analyzing respiration than just observing your pet breathing. The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), made it mandatory that every intubated human patient under general anesthesia must be monitored for ETCO2 levels.
• Blood pressures —are routinely done in humans to monitor depth of anesthesia. This is an essential monitoring technique in pets as well. Blood pressure can be monitored by a simple cuff that is placed either on a leg or a tail. Our certified technicians measure systolic, diastolic, and mean pressures every few minutes.
• Pulse Oximeter — a small, gentle clip is attached to your pet’s footpad. The clip uses light waves to measure how much oxygen the blood cells are carrying. This is a very sensitive instrument and can alert us to any combination of poor respiration or poor circulation.
• Electrocardiogram (EKG) — monitor clips are attached to your pet and give a continuous EKG readout just as any human operating room.
• Body Core Temperature —is especially important in smaller pets since they can lose significant body heat under anesthesia. We utilize the most current equipment available to maintain adequate body core temperature in all of our patients.

Providing clinical warmth to your pet before, during and after surgery:

Published research has correlated significant adverse consequences such as impaired wound healing, adverse cardiac events, altered drug metabolism, and coagulopathies with hypothermia. With prevention and management of hypothermia, patients also experience a greater level of comfort, and avoid postoperative shivering and the unpleasant sensation of feeling cold.

Passive warming insulation:

Thermostatically controlled passive warming medical devices are used at CPAH for patient warming. A water circulating blanket is connected to a Gaymar pump shown on the right. The pump circulates warm water through the blanket. This system is placed under all patients during anesthesia to help maintain body temperature.

A temperature controlled warming chamber similar to the image on the left is used to warm fleece blankets covering the patient, intravenous and irrigation fluids.

Active warming systems:

The most effective way to manage patient heat loss during and after anesthesia are warm forced-air devices. When the patient is placed under general anesthesia, a special blanket envelopes their body and delivers a continuous gentle flow of warm air. For many years, human patients have experienced the benefits of forced-air warming blankets. Now your pet can, too.

Video on Patient Warming at CPAH. You may need need to install Adobe Flash Player to view the video.

The adverse and costly outcomes associated with unintended hypothermia are well documented in human and veterinary patients. By providing warmth through temperature management control, we can prevent hypothermia in your pet—a serious complication in anesthetized pets.