Intra-anesthetic awareness.

Awareness during anesthesia is as old as anesthesia itself. Using muscle relaxing drugs, operations can be done on a relaxed but fully aware patient. The problem of intra-anesthetic awareness still exists despite the advances in anesthetic drugs and monitoring. This article reviews the subject from some aspects including its causes, signs, tests and medico-legal points. Awareness during anesthesia can be looked at as 'the invisible scars of surgery.'