Audiovisual distraction as a useful adjunct to epidural anesthesia and sedation for prolonged lower limb microvascular orthoplastic surgery

Lower limb orthopedic operations are frequently performed under regional anesthesia, which allows avoidance of potential side effects and complications of general anesthesia and sedation. Often though, patients feel anxious about being awake during operations. To decrease intraoperative anxiety, we use multimedia equipment consisting of a tablet device, noise-canceling headphones, and a makeshift frame, where patients can listen to music, watch movies, or occupy themselves in numerous ways. These techniques have been extensively studies in minimally invasive, short, or minor procedures but not in prolonged orthoplastic operations. We report 2 cases where audiovisual distraction was successfully applied to 9.5-hour procedures, proved to be a very useful adjunct to epidural anesthesia + sedation, and made an important contribution to positive patients' outcomes and overall patients' experience with regional anesthesia for complex limb reconstructive surgery. In the era when not only patients' safety and clinical outcomes but also patients' positive experiences are of paramount importance, audiovisual distraction may provide a simple tool to help improve experience of appropriately informed patients undergoing suitable procedures under regional anesthesia. The anesthetic technique received a very positive appraisal by both patients and encouraged us to study further the impact of modern audiovisual technology on anxiolysis for major surgery under regional anesthesia. The duration of surgery per se is not a contraindication to the use of audiovisual distraction. The absolute proviso of successful application of this technique to major surgery is effective regional anesthesia and good teamwork between the clinicians and the patients.