Combined spinal epidural (CSE) can provide excellent labor analgesia. Subdural block is also a potential but rare complication of attempted epidural placement during a CSE procedure, which may present as a block that is usually patchy in nature, with a component of sensory and/or motor deficit and a variable duration of action. In addition, a conversion disorder or a functional neurological dis...

Introduction The phrase “balanced anesthesia” originated from the coadministration of drugs to produce an “ideal” anesthetic state. Today the ideal anesthetic state implies adequate hypnosis, analgesia, muscle relaxation, and relief from stress. The last of these attributes, relief from stress, has been the focus of several investigations conducted in horses in order to determine the magnitude ...

AIM The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence and correlates of dissociative disorders among patients with drug dependency. METHODS The Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) was used to screen 104 consecutive patients at an addiction treatment center. Thirty-seven patients who had scores >or=30 were compared with 21 patients who scored <10 on the DES. Both groups were then e...

There is a wide variety of what have been called "dissociative disorders," including dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, depersonalization disorder, dissociative identity disorder, and forms of dissociative disorder not otherwise specified. Some of these diagnoses, particularly dissociative identity disorder, are controversial and have been questioned by many clinicians over the years. Th...

Many plastic surgery procedures that have traditionally been performed under general endotracheal anesthesia may safely be undertaken using a ketamine-based intravenous sedation technique. General endotracheal anesthesia has many drawbacks, including lack of patient acceptance. Ketamine-based intravenous sedation technique includes the following steps: 1. The patient is placed in a dissociated ...

Recent research has shown that dissociative symptoms are related to self-reports of deviant sleep experiences. The present study is the 1st to explore whether sleep loss can fuel dissociative symptoms. Twenty-five healthy volunteers were deprived of sleep for 1 night. Sleepiness and dissociative symptoms were assessed every 6 hr. The authors measured both spontaneous dissociative symptoms and d...

Several methods for inducing dissociation in the laboratory were examined in a sample of 78 undergraduate students. Participants scoring high or low on the Dissociative Experiences Scale participated in three dissociation challenge conditions: (a) dot-staring task, (b) administration of pulsed photic and audio stimulation and (c) stimulus deprivation. Participants recorded their dissociative ex...

It has been claimed that the progress of psychiatry has lagged behind that of other medical disciplines over the last few decades. This may suggest the need for innovative thinking and research in psychiatry, which should consider neglected areas as topics of interest in light of the potential progress which might be made in this regard. This review is concerned with one such field of psychiatr...

AJapanese version of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (]DES) was developed and administered to 199 late adolescents, 40 normal adults, 16 schizophrenics, and 19 subjects with dissociative disorders whose diagnoses were made with a comprehensive assessment including a semi-structured interview. As a result, theJDES yielded comparable reliability and validity with those established for the Diss...

The authors propose that clinicians endeavor to differentiate between reversible and irreversible memory failures in patients with dissociative symptoms who report "memory gaps" and "lost time." The classic dissociative disorders, such as dissociative amnesia and dissociative identity disorder, entail reversible memory failures associated with encoding experience in altered states. The authors ...