TJie aim of the study was to examine the influence of different periods
of sitting, before turning the patient to the supine position on the spread
of analgesia and on hemodynamic changes induced by subarachnoid in
jection of hyperbaric bupivacaine solution as a trial to verify the principle
of sitting after subarachnoid injection ofhyperbaric anesthetic solutions.
The study comprised 60 patients aged 18-56 years assigned to receive
spinal anesthesia using 6.5% bupivacaine in 8% glucose. Patients were
randomly allocated in 4 equal groups according to the duration of sitting
(2, 5, 10 & 20 mini after the spinal injection. Analgesia, defined as inabili
ty to detect a sharp pinprick, was assessed every 5-minfor 30 min after
the injection and at 45 and 60 min. The level of analgesia was defined
prior to (baseline level) and immediately after turning the patient to su
pine position, and 20 minutes after anesthetic injection, and at achieve
ment of the highest level. The mean increase of the level of analgesia was
defined in relation to the baseline level of analgesia. Motor block was also
evaluated. Systolic arterial pressure (SAP) and heart rate (HR) were moni
tored non-invasively.All groups showed increased level of analgesia after
turning the patients from sitting to the supine position with the 20-min pe
riod of sitting induced the least degree of increase of the level of analge
sia compared to the other groups. Time lapsed till achievement of highest
level of analgesia was significantly prolonged in.group IV, however, the
extent of increase of analgesia level at time of achievement of the highest
level showed a nonsignificant difference between all groups. Conse
quently, the increase in the upper analgesia levels beyond 20 min was
significantly (P |
