The Clinical Application of Automatic Anesthesia

Closed Loop Control

“…Automated anaesthesia was first administered in the early 50's usin9 the EEG as the controlling variable (Bickford, 1950;Soltero et al, 1951;Kiersey et al, 1954). The rate of administration of the anaesthesic agent, ether (Soltero et al, 1951) or thiopental sodium (Kiersey et al, 1954), was controlled by the rectified and integrated EEG activity through a proportional controller.…”

“…The rate of administration of the anaesthesic agent, ether (Soltero et al, 1951) or thiopental sodium (Kiersey et al, 1954), was controlled by the rectified and integrated EEG activity through a proportional controller. Although the system could be made to work satisfactorily for deep anaesthesia, it has not gained acceptance as a clinical tool.…”

“…First, the EEG potentials were summed without filtering (Bickford, 1950;Soltero et al, 1951). Then, in order to reduce noise artifacts and to improve the sensitivity to change in the anaesthetic depth, the EEG was bandpass filtered around 12 Hz, and the integral of the filtered signal was used to control the syringe infusing the anaesthetic agent (Kiersey et al, 1954).…”

Electroencephalogram based quantitative estimation of pain for balanced anaesthesia

“…The pain impulse then transmitted from the spinal cord to the brain stem and thalamus via two main nociceptive ascending pathways [3]. It is well-known that the Electroencephalogram (EEG) can provide a reliable basis for deriving a surrogate measurement of anaesthesia [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Many anaesthesia monitors are available off-the-shelf which give information of only hypnosis component of anaesthesia but none of them gives any information about pain experienced by the patient during surgery and post-surgical recovery [10].…”

A review of the control of depth of anaesthesia

“…The device was described, and its clinical use evaluated, in following articles by Mayo, Bickford and Faulconer (1950), Bickford (195 1 a), Soltero, Faulconer and Bickford (1951), and Kiersey, Faulconer and Bickford (1954). It was also redescribed in a review chapter by Faulconer and Bickford (1960).…”