Diagnostic Alarms During Anaesthesia

Anaesthesia has changed over thirty years. §Physiological knowledge and pharmacological §developments have improved the perioperative care of §the patient and technological advances have allowed §an integration of monitoring modalities. §Physiological changes occur during §anaesthesia and warning systems should be §based on the interaction of the interdependent §physiological processes. Simple threshold alarms are §used for the majority of monitored parameters. §This book describes ways of data collection, §processing and display that, hopefully, §will not only decrease the incidence of false alarms §but will also integrate the various parameters to §produce explicit warnings of adverse change. This §work is built on that of others and the writers §recognise that there is no simple answer if it §were so we would have intelligent integrated §monitors already. This book may be useful to §specialists and researchers in the fields of §anaesthesia and intensive care and may stimulate §those involved in the manufacture of monitors to §bring the sophistication of alarm technology up to a §level that might be expected from thirty years of §worldwide research.