Audiovisual Aid Pilot Study

Study Summary

Little is known about perioperative stress responses and possible anxiety mitigating factors like audiovisual aids or IV sedation. Most studies use surrogate markers and retrospective questionnaires, and are not based on real-time gathered data. Skin conductance measurements allow the sympathetic discharge to be evaluated down to fractions of a second and enable us to continuously monitor stress responses as skin conductance responses/per second during the perioperative management. In our study, the investigators propose to examine the effect of personal audiovisual equipment (audio/video goggles) on perioperative stress, pain, and overall experience in patients undergoing ambulatory meniscectomy under spinal anesthesia. Patients will be randomly assigned to either receive traditional sedation or light sedation in addition to audiovisual equipment. The investigators hope to determine outcome estimates of the use of this equipment on stress levels using skin conductance measurements, request for further sedation, postoperative pain levels and analgesic consumption, time to discharge readiness, and overall patient satisfaction, and collect thus far unavailable data on the stress response to perioperative stresses (such as IV insertion and spinal placement) in order to allow for power analyses for future studies.

Primary Outcome

Primary outcome will be number of skin conductance responses per second (SCR/sec) and amplitude of skin conductance responses averaged over time in 5 minute intervals and at key time points such before, during and after insertion of an IV, discussion with surgeon, anesthesiologist, immediately before leaving the holding area, immediately after entering the OR, during application of monitors, before and after administration of sedatives, before, during and after spinal insertion, incision, immedi

Interventions

• DRUG Midazolam
• DEVICE Zeiss, Cinema ProMED (audiovisual equipment)
• DEVICE Skin Conductance Monitor