[neverdem]

Zucherman said he invented the device in 1997 after watching a patient who received a successful laminectomy become mentally disabled - he couldn't remember where he was moment to moment - because of the full anesthesia used.

How often does that occur with general anesthesia, or is full anesthesia different from general anesthesia, and what is the term for it besides amnesia?

[Forte Runningrock]

All anesthesia carries with it a potential risk. Because of the nature of this surgery, because they have to actually move the spinal cord slightly, they put you under deeper, near death. If you were to twitch when they touched a nerve with sharp scalpels in there, you could end up paralyzed, or some other loss of function.

It's not only brain damage you risk, loss of bowl/bladder control, loss of kidney function, full or partial paralysis, anything in the spinal cord nerve bundle in that area which could be damaged.

I don't know what the rate is for anesthesia reactions, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in a 1000, while risk of nerve damage from the older laminectomy method is 1 in a 100. At least that's what my surgeon told me. This new method sounds much better, and has simular sucess rates.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Was explained to me that when a full anesthesia is used, except for the heart, for all intents and purposes, one is completely paralyzed. Under a general, one just goes to sleep.

[Ethrane]

I have NO IDEA what that statement means. 'Full' anesthesia is not a term I've seen used previously.

General anesthesia means simply 'unconsciousness' in laymen's terms, which is associated with a loss of the body's protective reflexes (such as airway maintenance for example).

As far as someone becoming 'mentally disabled' after a general anesthetic, I would say that that should never occur in the absence of a catastrophic event such as brain ischemia or a stroke. Elderly people do on occasion however have a temporary decline in mental status after general anesthesia (which some studies suggest can last weeks), but the cause is probably multifactorial (debilitated state, cerebrovascular disease, pre-existing mental deterioration and severity of illness coupled with a difficult or prolonged anesthetic).

But that statement you quoted makes no sense to me at all.