A. E. Bonebakker
Department of Consultive Neurology and Psychology
Psychiatric Center "Rosenburg"
P. O. Box 53019
2505 AA The Hague
The Netherlands
boneklui@box.nl
B. Bonke
Department of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy
Erasmus University Rotterdam
P. O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
bonke@mpp.fgg.eur.nl
J. Klein
Department of Anesthesiology
St. Clara Hospital, Rotterdam
3015 GD Rotterdam
The Netherlands
G. Wolters
Unit of Experimental and Theoretical Psychology
University of Leiden
P. O. Box 9555
2300 RB Leiden
The Netherlands
wolters@rulfsw.LeidenUniv.nl
Th. Stijnen
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Erasmus University Rotterdam
P. O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
J. Passchier
Department of Medical Psychology and Psychotherapy
Erasmus University Rotterdam
P. O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
The Netherlands
P. M. Merikle
Department of Psychology
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
pmerikle@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
Memory for words presented during anesthesia was studied in two experiments. In Experiment 1, surgical patients (n=80) undergoing elective procedures under general anesthesia were presented shortly before and during surgery with words via headphones. At the earliest convenient time after surgery (within 5 h) and 24 h later, memory was tested by asking patients to complete auditorily presented word stems with the first word that came to mind and to leave out words they remembered having heard earlier (ex clusion task). Moreover, patients were requested to perform a 'yes/no' forced-choice recognition task to assess recognition memory for both the pre- and intraoperative words. Memory for the material presented during anesthesia was demonstrated immediate ly after surgery and 24 h later by means of both tasks. In a second similar study (n=80), the results were replicated. These findings show that anesthetized patients can process information that was presented intraoperatively.