Preoperative anxiety and stress are an underestimated problem. Upcoming surgery and waiting times place a heavy burden on patients and trigger stress and anxiety. Numerous studies show that anxiety is not merely an unpleasant sensation but also has negative effects on the perioperative course.
A survey of more than 16,000 patients in England strikingly confirms these findings.
Anxiety can increase anaesthetic requirements for the induction and maintenance of anaesthesia
Patients with higher levels of anxiety experience more postoperative pain
Preoperative anxiety has a negative impact on postoperative recovery and leads to longer hospital stays
Higher process and follow-up costs: Perioperative complications, increased use of medication, the risk of delirium and other factors can prolong patients' hospital stays and thus lead to higher costs
Additional costs per delirium patient
Longer length of stay
Humans perceive more than 80 per cent of their surroundings through their eyes and ears. This explains the phenomenon of “audiovisual sedation”. By deliberately distracting the brain with images and sound, patients are “transported” to an environment they find pleasant.
Between 30 and 80% of intensive care patients develop delirium. This is caused, among other things, by medication and stress factors. Agitated patients not only consume more resources (length of stay and material costs) but also create additional work for staff. Preventing delirium is therefore important from both a medical and an economic perspective. Calculations from German hospitals have shown that the staff costs, material costs and length of stay of patients with delirium can increase costs by up to €1,200 per inpatient hospital stay. Delirium can also lead to a considerably longer length of stay (+4.2 days). Based on these data, it was calculated for the use of the HappyMed video glasses that an investment in the video glasses pays for itself if at least one case of delirium is prevented per 113 uses.
As early as 1998, a randomised controlled trial confirmed that patients who listened to music during medical procedures required significantly less medication to achieve the same level of sedation as the control group.
In 2004, Lee et al. conducted a randomised controlled trial of patient-controlled audiovisual sedation during colonoscopy. The results showed that patients who received audiovisual distraction required significantly less anaesthetic medication.
In 2017, the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management published a meta-analysis concluding that audiovisual sedation is a promising intervention for procedural pain.
The key studies on audiovisual sedation, summarised in 20 pages — for researchers.
For heads of department, clinical staff and hospital management: audiovisual sedation explained concisely in 20 pages of text and images.
Get in touch with us if you are interested in clinical studies or are planning one.
Possible areas of application include: