Contents

Disclaimer

Oxford University Press makes no representation, express or implied, that the drug dosages in this book are correct. Readers must therefore always check the product information and clinical procedures with the most up to date published product information and data sheets provided by the manufacturers and the most recent codes of conduct and safety regulations. The authors and the publishers do not accept responsibility or legal liability for any errors in the text or for the misuse or misapplication of material in this work. Except where otherwise stated, drug dosages and recommendations are for the non-pregnant adult who is not breastfeeding.

Show Summary Details
Page of

Intraoperative monitoring 

Intraoperative monitoring
Chapter:
Intraoperative monitoring
Author(s):

Marc R. Nuwer

DOI:
10.1093/med/9780199688395.003.0036
Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD MEDICINE ONLINE (www.oxfordmedicine.com). © Oxford University Press, 2020. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in Oxford Medicine Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 21 October 2020

Intraoperative monitoring and testing is conducted to improve neurological outcomes from surgery that incurs risk of neurological injury. Many techniques are familiar from the outpatient neurodiagnostic laboratory, and can be applied with minor modifications to the operating room setting. Other techniques are specific to the operating room. Transcranial electrical motor evoked potentials cannot be applied to awake patients, but are commonly used under general anaesthesia. Monitoring teams understand the tactics for obtaining quality recordings and calling alarms when potentials change past preset limits. Surgeons and anaesthesiologists have a variety of tactics for responding to adverse neurodiagnostic changes beginning with easy actions. In experienced hands, intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring substantially reduces post-operative deficits. For example, in spinal cord monitoring the risk of paraplegia and paraparesis is reduced by 60%. Monitoring is carried out by a technologist in the operating room under the supervision of an experienced neurophysiologist. In straightforward cases, the neurophysiologist may remotely monitor from outside the operating room.

Access to the complete content on Oxford Medicine Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.