Measuring immediate recovery from general anaesthesia using a scoring system

The study describes the design and testing of a scoring system to measure immediate recovery from anaesthesia. The scoring system which measures the patient's cognitive, motor haemodynamic and respiratory recovery, was applied in 1,626 patients. The score was measured at five minutes intervals and the results were plotted on recovery graphs for each patient. The analysis shows that patients who had received automatic ventilation during their anaesthetic were likely to arrive in the recovery room with a score of 14 or 15 (the top score), while other patients were likely to arrive with lower scores and progressed in their recovery at 0.9 (SD 0.6) score units per minute. Multivariate analysis confirms that the anaesthetist's decision to employ automatic or spontaneous ventilation is the most important single factor in determining the rate of increase of the recovery score. It is suggested that this scoring system, which fits well with the clinical appreciation of the case, is a useful tool in the hands of the recovery nurse.