Cardiac anesthesia is a specialized process where medications are used to safely put you into a pain-free, unconscious sleep during heart surgeries and procedures. This ensures you're comfortable, pain-free, and relaxed while the surgical team works on your heart. Your vital signs, like heart rate and breathing, are carefully monitored to keep everything on track during the procedure.
Cardiac anesthesia: The key to effective heart surgery + recovery
Cardiac anesthesiology focuses on providing safe and effective anesthesia care for patients undergoing heart surgery and other heart-related procedures. We are dedicated to ensuring you are pain-free, comfortable and closely monitored throughout your procedure. Using specialized techniques, we carefully manage your vital signs, like heart rate and blood pressure, to support your heart health during heart surgery and procedure. The specialty of cardiac anesthesiology brings a deep understanding of heart function, allowing us to tailor anesthesia specifically to your heart's needs.
We are trained to handle potential complications, such as blood pressure fluctuations or heart rhythm issues, minimizing risks to ensure your safety. With a commitment to the highest standards of care, our cardiac anesthesiology team works alongside surgeons to ensure the best possible outcome for your heart procedure. After surgery, we continue to monitor your recovery and adjust care to ensure a smooth and safe healing process.
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Conditions
While heart disease and surgery can bring challenges, you’re not facing them alone. With the expertise of cardiac anesthesiology, we work together to ensure a safe, comfortable journey through treatment, helping manage conditions such as:
- Aortic disease: Issues with the aorta, such as aneurysms or dissections, which may require surgery and specialized anesthesia management.
- Arrhythmias: Irregular heartbeats that may need surgical intervention.
- Cardiomyopathy: A condition where the heart muscle becomes weakened, which could lead to heart failure or need for a heart transplant.
- Coronary artery disease: When the heart's blood vessels become narrowed or blocked, requiring surgery.
- Congenital heart defects: Birth defects affecting the heart that may require surgery later in life.
- Heart valve disease: When the valves in the heart don't function properly, often requiring repair or replacement.
- Heart failure: When the heart is unable to pump blood effectively, requiring complex procedures like heart transplants or ventricular assist device implants.
- Post-surgical recovery: Managing anesthesia during the recovery process following heart surgery to ensure comfort and safety.
Treatments
Cardiac anesthesia helps keep you safe, comfortable and stable during heart surgeries. Here’s how it works for different treatments:
- Aortic surgery: When heart surgery is needed to fix parts of the aorta, cardiac anesthesia keeps you pain-free and relaxed. We make sure your blood pressure stays steady during surgery to reduce the risk of complications.
- Arrhythmia treatments: For procedures like catheter ablation or pacemaker implantation, cardiac anesthesia keeps you comfortable and relaxed. Sometimes, light sedation is used so you won’t feel discomfort during the procedure, which can last anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours.
- Heart surgery: During surgeries like coronary artery bypass or heart valve repair, cardiac anesthesia keeps you pain-free and relaxed. The team watches your heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen levels to make sure everything stays stable.
- Heart transplants: When a damaged heart is replaced with a donor heart, cardiac anesthesia keeps you unconscious and pain-free during the whole surgery. We also support your heart function and monitor your vital signs to keep you safe.
- TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement): This procedure replaces a narrow aortic valve without open-heart surgery. Cardiac anesthesia keeps you relaxed and pain-free during the procedure. Depending on your condition, you may be given either light sedation or full anesthesia. We carefully watch your heart function and vital signs throughout.
- Ventricular assist device (VAD) implantation: This procedure places a pump to help the heart pump blood in those with severe heart failure. Cardiac anesthesia keeps you fully relaxed during the surgery and adjusts anesthesia levels to fit the needs of the procedure since it can take several hours.
Throughout all of these surgeries and procedures, we adjust medications as needed to match your unique medical needs and the complexity of the surgery. We continuously monitor your heart function, blood pressure, oxygen levels and other vital signs to ensure everything goes smoothly, keeping you as safe and comfortable as possible during your heart surgery and procedure.
Our safety measures
The American Society of Anesthesiologists has developed national standards to enhance the safety and quality of anesthesia. These standards are carefully followed to ensure you receive the highest level of care during your procedure.
Here are a few standards that are already in place today:
- Pre-surgery care: Our team works with you to prepare for your heart procedure, ensuring you're fully informed and ready.
- Continuous monitoring during surgery: We monitor your heart rate, blood pressure, and vital signs throughout the procedure, ensuring stability and comfort.
- Post-surgery care: After surgery, we focus on your recovery, making adjustments as needed to ensure you’re pain-free and healing well.
- Conduction anesthesia in obstetrics: In certain heart procedures involving pregnancy, we use specialized techniques to ensure both the mother and child are safe.
Your safety is our top priority. Thanks to today’s advanced techniques, monitoring approaches and improved anesthesia equipment, we’re able to provide the safest, most effective care possible for all heart surgeries. Our team supports you every step of the way, from consultation to recovery.
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