The Impact of Maternal Sound on Awareness for Pediatric Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery

Awareness during anesthesia with intraoperative memory occurs when the patient is able to process information and produce specific responses to several stimuli. Anecdotal evidence suggests that children exposed to therapeutic suggestion consisting of gently encouraging, positive words spoken to them during emergence from anesthesia seem to arouse after surgery with less agitation, less pain and lower requirements for pain medications. Therapeutic suggestion has been associated with positive results in some adults during surgery, but it is unknown how therapeutic suggestion affects children. A newborn's recognition and preference for their mother's voice occurs early in life, very likely during fetal development. Additional evidence, revealed that at least as early as 4 months of age, infants process auditory stimuli from their mother's voice at a higher amplitude than they process auditory input from female strangers, suggesting that maternal voice stimuli undergo a unique form of cerebral processing that lends support for the existence of neurophysiologic mechanisms that reflect a child's preference for his/her mother's voice. This study aims to evaluate and compare the possibility of intra-operative awareness prevention by using either music listening or maternal sound listening in children undergoing cardiac surgery.