General anesthesia involves the delivery of a medicine, through injection or inhalation, to make the patient unconscious or sleep while the surgeon performs surgery on them. General anesthesia aims to make the patient unable to experience the pain stimuli that occur during the surgery. The anesthesia medications cause analgesia, sedation, muscle paralysis, and amnesia.
The muscles of the digestive system are relaxed after anesthesia. It increases the risk of passing the food and fluids of the stomach into the lungs. Thus, the patients are advised to avoid eating or drinking a few hours before the surgery.
Various forms of general anesthesia include intravenous anesthetics, inhalational anesthetics, intravenous sedatives, neuromuscular blocking drugs, and sedative opioids.