Magnesium Sulphate vs Dexmedetomidine in Prevention of Emergence Agitation in Adults After Nasal Surgeries.

Postoperative agitation (POA) although short-lived is potentially harmful to the patient and the recovery staff. In the postoperative care unit, an agitated patient requires more nurses to control his abnormal movement and apply restrains that could result in bruises of his extremities. In the postoperative care unit, we noticed that agitated patients remove venous and arterial catheters, nasal packs, oxygen masks and endotracheal tubes leading to bleeding and hypoxia.

Post-operative agitation is a well-documented phenomenon in children recovering from sevoflurane anesthesia. However, in adults, few reports have highlighted the occurrence of this phenomenon. The exact trigger for this complication remains to be determined, however, many factors play a crucial role in revealing POA. While an alert, calm patient is the ideal recovery outcome, the occurrence of excitation, excessive motor movements and unexplained sounds is not an uncommon scenario following nasal surgery in adults. Several factors have been incriminated to provoke agitations in adults; pain, hypoxia, type of operation, too rapid emergence from anesthesia, sedatives like benzodiazepines.

Post-operative agitation following nasal surgery The incidence of postoperative agitation following nasal surgery is relatively high. The exact mechanism is Unknown. However, some studies reported that the occurrence of POA could be as high as 55.4% and the presence of nasal pack is likely to be the main trigger of agitation. Other experiments reported an incidence of 68% following nasal surgery. We highlighted several factors that may increase the prevalence of POA; Male gender, young age, smoking, postoperative pain and premedication with atropine and Phenergan. Yu et al., 2005 reported a 55% incidence of POA after nasal surgery. They demonstrated that Doxapram administration, pain, and presence of a tracheal tube and or a urinary catheter appear to be the most important causes of postoperative agitation. Similarly, pain, urinary catheters, and tracheal tubes were also reported by Kim et al., 2004as risk factors for POA following nasal surgery. The presence of nasal pack as a trigger to POA remains debatable.