How IV Sedation Help Patients with Special Needs

There are many forms of anesthesia that a doctor can administer on a patient to make their operation more comfortable. All anesthesia serves the same purpose—reducing the pain and stress during operation. However, depending on the circumstances, the patient may need more attention when administering a pain-relieving drug.

In this post, we are going to address patients with special needs and why IV sedation is the best option you will need for calming them down during a clinical surgery. To begin with, you should know that patients with special needs require special assistance due to their conditions.

The factors that make a patient be of special needs may arise from their physical, mental, psychological, or medical conditions. You need to take care when dealing with such cases. And, intravenous sedation is your best friend when you want to address such patients. Here are some of the ways Intravenous injections can help you when dealing with patients of special needs.

1. It Promotes Relaxation

Patients who have depression cannot undergo surgery. The pain that patients go through also causes stress that may hinder them from cooperating during the treatment process. Doctors need to manage the patients and help them calm down before they proceed with the operation.

Among all the anesthesia, IV sedation is the most effective method of relieving your patient of pain and stress. Its quick action means that the medicine gets into the systems quickly. With an immediate response, IV helps the patient to relax and calm down.

The relaxation effect of intravenous therapy does away with stress and pain. In the same manner, it can also reverse the adverse effects of depression. The choice of IV therapy to use may differ from one doctor to another based on their experience and the reliability of the product. The selection may also depend on the patient's previous indications. Along with patients with special needs, people with depression need to see a qualified doctor with a valid certification to undergo the intravenous infusion process. The doctor needs to monitor the patient after the treatment to ensure that the medication works to improve the situation.

Depending on the reaction or situation, the doctor may choose to stop or change the administration on the patient.

2. IV Treatment for Gag Reflex

The pharyngeal reflex is a process that helps young kids to moderate the transition of food from liquid to solid. An example is when the milk turns into curd before it reaches the stomach. The roof of the child’s mouth feels solid and triggers the reflex causing the infant to spit the food.

Patients who have hypersensitive gag reflex find it difficult to withstand objects touching certain areas of their mouths. It can be a learned process that develops after a past experience. Other conditions like cerebral palsy can heighten hypersensitivity in adults.

During a dental surgery, a gag reflex can hinder the dentist from completing the operation. As such, the doctor needs to ensure that they cool the effect before beginning the process. Intravenous infusion is the best choice that can help such patients when they need dental care services.

As anesthesia, IV infusion helps to ease the pain patients go through during dental surgery. The treatment for gag reflex makes IV an ideal solution for the dentists operating on such patients. Intravenous therapy helps to prevent the effect of the condition to allow the dentist to work on the teeth without causing an effect when the tools touch the mouth.

3. Intravenous Infusion for Epilepsy

We all know that epileptic patients are hard to manage. Without warning, you can find them in seizure and convulsions. If there is nobody with experience on how to handle these kinds of patients, they can get hurt when the seizure attacks them.

Because of their condition, you may find it difficult to carry out any medical operations on them. You need to calm the effect of epilepsy when handling the patient. The general anesthesia may help in handling the pain. However, from research, only IV treatment shows proof of effectiveness for treating the epileptic patients.

The reason why intravenous infusion is preferable over other forms of sedation is its anti-convolution effect. When the doctor uses the sedation on an epileptic patient, they can calm the seizures for a period long enough to carry out an operation on their patient.

IV is a type of “conscious sedation” and will help doctors and caregivers to handle the epileptic patients with ease. Even when the patient does not need any form of treatment procedures causing pain, you can still rely on IV infusion to reduce the seizures.

In so doing, you can make the life of the patient less painful. You should, however, remember that only certified doctors are allowed to treat with intravenous infusion.

4. The Right Option for Down Syndrome

Patients with down syndrome make the majority of all the dental patients who exhibit special needs. The indications of the condition include stunted growth, small teeth, a flattened nose, and small ears. The patients may also have a large tongue and tonsils.

Doctors usually have a hard time conducting an operation on these patients because it is hard to access the vascular system. Because of their anatomic differences, it is hard to manage their air passages. For the same reason, inhalants and other forms of anesthesia may be inappropriate.

Doctors who are aware of the conditions need to be careful when administering anesthetic treatments. Because intravenous sedation is a conscious treatment, it is ideal for such patients because you can manage it easily while monitoring your patient.

Summing Up

When conducting a dental surgery, there are various types of anesthesia you can choose from. But, sometimes, you will find out that patients do not respond well to the medication to facilitate the operation process.

Some of the indications that dictate the necessity of intravenous therapy include multimorbidities and lack of cooperation in children. Cognitive impairment is another problem with adults with special needs. When you see these indications, you can resort to IV sedation to help your patients.