A new degraded auditory stimulus test to measure implicit memory during anaesthesia in children

Abstract

It remains unclear whether children form implicit memories during general anaesthesia. This is partly due to a lack of tests for implicit memory that are appropriate for the anaesthesia setting. The aim of this study was to assess a new implicit memory test that could be more suitable for use with children during anaesthesia. Ninety-three children aged five to 12 years who were undergoing elective surgery were studied. Patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups preoperatively and exposed to a familiar animal sound, followed by a distractor task. Two animal sounds were tested; in one group children were exposed to one animal sound preoperatively, while in the other group they were e..