Recovery and simulated driving after intravenous anesthesia with thiopental, methohexital, propanidid, or alphadione.

Recovery from anesthesia was assessed in a double-bind manner in 40 healthy volunteer students after intravenous anesthesia with thiopental (6.0 mg/kg), methohexital (2.0 mg/kg), propanidid (6.6 mg/kg), or alphadione (Althesin), 85 mul/kg using a driving simulator 2,4, 6, and 8 hours after injection of the drugs. Clinical recovery was faster after propanidid and methohexital than after thiopental or alphadione. Driving performances remained significantly (P less than 0.05) worse than in a control group for 6 hours after thiopental and for 8 hours after methohexital, and reaction times 8 hours after thiopental remained worse than in the control subjects. After alphadione driving skills were impaired at 6 hours only. Propanidid produced no impairment in driving skills at any time during the experiment. It is concluded that after the doses used in this study patients should not drive or operate machinery for at least 2 hours after propanidid and for at least 8 hours after alphadione. After methohexital and thiopental patients should probably not drive for 24 hours because of the severity of the disturbances at 8 hours.