General anesthesia: The patient "goes to sleep" while the operation lasts.
Sedation: Intravenous drugs calm the patient or make them unaware of the procedure.
Regional anesthesia: Local anesthetic is injected near the nerves to numb the area that will be operated. These may be nerve blocks or spinal or epidural injections.
Anesthesia is a substance that that is able to render a person numb to pain or unconscious. It is not known exactly how it works, but it is believed to affect the brain stem and parts of the brain that control reactions to pain. Since anesthesia can reduce pain, it is used when medical professionals have to perform operations that can be painful if the person is conscious. This would include any form of surgery. For this reason, Anesthesia has greatly improved the patient’s experience of surgery.
There are four major types of anesthesia. General anesthesia will render a person unconscious and is used in surgeries such as heart surgery. Monitored anesthesia is used when drowsiness but not necessarily unconsciousness is desired. Regional anesthesia is used when only part of the body needs to be numbed, such as the arm or leg. Local anesthesia is used for very small operations such as removal of a mole.