Muscular Atrophy Essay

The Effectiveness of Anesthesia on Spinal Muscular Atrophy Such diseases can affect the muscles. Asides from diseases, muscles can also be affected by its conditions. Muscular atrophy is when muscles waste away. Muscle wasting can be caused by a lack of physical activity due to a disease or injury, making it difficult or impossible to move certain body parts, such as a leg or an arm. There are other causes for muscle atrophy as well, but the lack of physical activity occurs to be the main reason (www.healthline.com/symptom/muscle-wasting). The following features a study on how effective anesthesia is with children who have spinal muscular atrophy. People who have spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) usually have this neuromuscular disorder due to deletions or mutations in the survivor motor genes SMA is classified in four types (type I, II, III, IV). To medically treat this disorder, supportive care is needed to help the patient no matter what type they are classified with (Graham). Children who are diagnosed with SMA require anesthetic care for their diagnostic tests and interventions. The purpose of this study is to show how anesthetic care affects children with SMA and how to effectively utilize perioperative resources and to identify
opportunities to improve care (Graham). In order to conduct this study, the researchers took retrospective case reviews between the years 1981 through 2008 of children with SMA that had/were currently receiving general and regional anesthetics. The study included patients who were identified with having a neuromuscular clinical database and hospital ICD-9 codes (Graham). Data was collected to record demographics, care site, and anesthetic techniques used fro each patient. Also, data was gathered to report any complications that occurred during and after anesthesia as well as the length of stay at the hospital and the patient’s disposition (Graham). The hospital committee approved this study to be conducted. They saw the protocol and concluded that there was no intervention or presentation of any identifiers, so the informed consent was not necessary. The results revealed that forty-three children were conducted in this study due to having SMA.
Twenty-five of these children had undergone one or more anesthetics within the years of 1981 through 2008 for a total of 56 cases. The average age for the following SMA types I, II, and III are 2.1, 7.0, and 9.3 years respectively. This study included more female than males. And, each case was documented and was recorded for the following information: the indication of anesthesia, the anesthetic technique, any intraoperative complications that occurred, the postoperative disposition, the postoperative pain management, any post operative complications, the length of stay at the hospital, and any report of advance care planning
(Graham).