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Drugs. Give the patient some drugs to keep them calm. Having escorted a few family members to MRI appointments, I detect that the only reason not to drug pati

Drugs. Give the patient some drugs to keep them calm. Having escorted a few family members to MRI appointments, I detect that the only reason not to drug patients is that the MRI staff lack the medical expertise to supervise drugged people. They are generally technicians rather than doctors/nurses. The situation is like dentistry imho. Most people are fine having with local antithetic, but there are dentists that specialize in anxious people who need actual sedation. So have the one MRI center with a doc to knock you out long enough for the machine to do its thing. The procedure for getting a patient in and out of the machine always seems to take much longer than the actual scan. It might seem a bit dystopian, but a line of unconscious patients already secured on gurneys could probably be moved much more quickly than people climbing in and out, minimizing the downtime between patients.

ceejayoz 3y ago
They can, if necessary. Oral Valium is a much more likely first step, though. Heavy sedation carries significant risk.
cantSpellSober 3y ago
They already do that > MRI staff lack the medical expertise to supervise drugged people They don't, in fact they are often trained to administer drugs and other things (like contrast agents) > unconscious patients already secured on gurneys That's a level that might require an anesthesiologist. Some places offer mirrored glasses at a 45-degree angle, allowing the patient to see outside of the machine. This often reduces anxiety.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  >> often trained to administer drugs and other things Not in the clinics I've seen. Maybe in full hospitals, but in my area the majority of MRIs are at small clinics where the staff are adamant that they cannot handle any drugs beyond contrast agents.
  - cantSpellSober 3y ago
    The context of the article is hospitals; still an important distinction
lostlogin 3y ago
You make a comparison with dentistry. Monitoring a patient when you are next to them is one thing, but it’s quite another to monitor a patient in another room with equipment that can’t contain wires and is running cables at 10ish metres long. Sedation adds about 50% more time to a scan and anaesthetics doubles or quadruples scanner time while also adding the cost of anaesthetics, prep and recovery, which is huge. Doing scans without sedation is preferable. On a well run MR, patient change over is 1-2 minutes. Coil setup takes longer and varies between scans but for 20 minutes of imaging I’d expect bookings to be 30 minutes. The 20 minutes doesn’t include pauses between scans, SAR cool down and sequence prep time (which are all hard limits and staff can’t really improve them).

ceejayoz 3y ago

They can, if necessary. Oral Valium is a much more likely first step, though. Heavy sedation carries significant risk.

cantSpellSober 3y ago

They already do that > MRI staff lack the medical expertise to supervise drugged people They don't, in fact they are often trained to administer drugs and other things (like contrast agents) > unconscious patients already secured on gurneys That's a level that might require an anesthesiologist. Some places offer mirrored glasses at a 45-degree angle, allowing the patient to see outside of the machine. This often reduces anxiety.

sandworm101 3y ago
>> often trained to administer drugs and other things Not in the clinics I've seen. Maybe in full hospitals, but in my area the majority of MRIs are at small clinics where the staff are adamant that they cannot handle any drugs beyond contrast agents.
- cantSpellSober 3y ago
  The context of the article is hospitals; still an important distinction

lostlogin 3y ago

You make a comparison with dentistry. Monitoring a patient when you are next to them is one thing, but it’s quite another to monitor a patient in another room with equipment that can’t contain wires and is running cables at 10ish metres long. Sedation adds about 50% more time to a scan and anaesthetics doubles or quadruples scanner time while also adding the cost of anaesthetics, prep and recovery, which is huge. Doing scans without sedation is preferable. On a well run MR, patient change over is 1-2 minutes. Coil setup takes longer and varies between scans but for 20 minutes of imaging I’d expect bookings to be 30 minutes. The 20 minutes doesn’t include pauses between scans, SAR cool down and sequence prep time (which are all hard limits and staff can’t really improve them).