General Help

AnestAssist usage and background information can be found in a number of locations on this site. Topics include

• Getting started. A tutorial is here: AnestAssist Tutorial
• Detailed operation. The reference manual: AnestAssist Manual
• How does it work? Clinical and scientific basis: AnestAssist Scientific Basis
• User Forum. Browse or post a question, receive answers from other users as well as Palma Healthcare personnel: AnestAssist Forum
• Contact Us. Email your question and we will reply ASAP: AnestAssist Forum

Specific Questions

• Q. What drug interactions are calculated?
• A. AnestAssist PK/PD calculates the combined effect (sedation and/or analgesia) probability for propofol, sevoflurane, or isoflurane interacting with remifentanil or any of it's congeners fentanyl, alfentanil, and sufentanil. For details please see AnestAssist Scientific Basis.


• Q. How are drug interactions calculated?
• A. Clinical researchers construct 3D response surface models, which basically give the response (effect probability) over a range of effect site concentrations of a pair of drugs in combination. AnestAssist uses a propofol-remifentanil response surface model for which references can be found here: AnestAssist Scientific Basis.


• Q. How long can a case simulation be?
• A. Cases with a "real-time" time base may be 48 hrs, cases with a "smulation" time base may be 24 hrs. From a practical point of view, the longer the case the longer the recalculation time. It takes less than a second to calculate 1 hour of a propofol+remifentanil case. A 12 hour case of propofol+remifentanil takes about 10 seconds to completely calculate on an iPhone 3G. However, when a drug is entered AnestAssist only recalculates from the time the drug was given to 2 hours in the future, so you will normally not see recalculation times more than about 1 or 2 seconds no matter how long the case is.


• Q. How many drug given entries can I enter?
• A. There is no limit on the number of drug entries imposed by AnestAssist, nor do the number of entries have any significant effect on calculation times. The main determinant of calculation time is total case length (see above)


• Q. How many case files can I store?
• A. There is no limit on the number of cases you can store imposed by AnestAssist. Case files are very small, just patient info and the drug given list are stored (the PK/PD graphs are recalculated when the case is opened). A case file is typically less than 1000 bytes, so you could store 1000 cases and only use 1 MB!