Stage and planes of anesthesia
Levels of anesthesia • Stage 1: Voluntary excitement: This begins with the induction of anesthesia. Shortly after our patient has received the calculated preanesthetic drugs our patient should appear aware, but also will display signs of being scared trying to escape. I have seen many techs bitten from underestimating these signs. Not every pet gets aggressive some try to escape. You can believe me there is nothing worse than trying to catch a loose anesthetic cat or dog around the hospital. We had a cat loose in our surgery room and the cat staggered around the room and up and down the counter tops. Finally, the staff had the cat cornered, and the patient was captured safely in a net. We then placed him
I have to make sure the patient is receiving enough oxygen that the heart and temperature rate is not to high or low. This is occurs when our patient is under deep surgical anesthesia. The respirations are shallower and at the lower level of the normal range, the heart rate has slowed down and the capillary refill time has increased. The muscle tone is greatly reduced. Now our patient should not be responsive to surgical manipulation and all reflexes are weakened so this is a good time for our patient’s surgical procedure to begin. The Dr. has determined that our patient is under enough not to feel the surgical procedure but not so under that we wont be able to recover the patient
It means the patient has peaked too deep during the anesthetic procedure. Now the patient is dying from decreased respiratory and cardiac functions that will lead to immediate death.
Cites:
Surgical risk is always there and Its always best to avoid plane 3 and 4 and move to the next stage which is:
• Stage 4 Recovery of the patient. At our practice we have to stay with the Patient until the patient’s vital signs are within a normal range. We have one Surgery tech and one surgery recovery tech for every surgery. Since I am overseeing the patients recovery, I need make sure the patient is monitored until awake and able to stand. Usually the signs I may encounter are shivering, vocal sounds and urination. The Dr. will have us give an injectable pain medication if patient is showing signs of pain. Some other signs I may look for are vomiting, low temperature, and thrashing in the cage.

• The American College of Veterinary Anesthesiologists guidelines of anesthetic monitoring JAVMA 206 (7) 936-937, 1995 • Hall L, Clarke K, and Trim C. Veterinary Anesthesia Saunders 2002 • Thurmon J, Benson J, and Tranquilli W Veterinary Anesthesia Williams and Wilkinson 1996 • Seymour C and Gleed R (eds) BSAVA Manual of Small Animal Anesthesia and Analgesia