Balanced anesthesia allows us to minimize patient risk and
maximize patient comfort and safety. The objectives of balanced
anesthesia are to calm the patient, minimize pain, and reduce
the potential for adverse effects associated with analgesic and
anesthetic agents. Calming the patient is important to allow for
ease in handling and to decrease the amount of stress in the
patient. As we know, stress can cause tachycardia, tachypnoea,
hypertension, and other consequences of catecholamine release.
These can all be detrimental to the anesthetized patient. Stress
and anxiety contribute to the nociceptive pain process. Some
examples of medications that calm the patient are acepromazine,
diazepam or midazolam, and medetomidine. Pain is associated with
both elective surgery and trauma. In people, especially
pediatric patients, pain has been shown to delay healing,
decrease appetite, and contribute to mortality. The best way to
control pain is to stop it before it starts. Proper analgesics
can also aid in calming the