| Summary: | Although not considered standard of care, depth of anes-thesia monitors are frequently used in adults to ensure an appropriate level of anesthesia and potentially limit the incidence of intraoperative awareness. Although, there are several depth of anesthesia monitors available, the one that has seen the greatest use both in and out of the operating room is the bispectral index (BIS) monitor. The BIS monitor is a quantitative electroencephalogram device that provides a numerical value to quantify the depth of anesthesia. To date, its applications outside of the operating room (OR) setting remain limited. We present a 16-year-old patient in whom the BIS monitor was used to monitor sedation during the use of neuromuscular block- ing agents in the Pediatric ICU during end-of-life care.
The general principles of the BIS monitor are presented, its use in the OR reviewed, and its potential role outside of the OR including the palliative care setting discussed.
|
|---|