Safe sedation and sedation versus anaesthesia: when is it ok to not intubate?: When is it ok to use sedation safely and not induce anaesthesia? Are there any circumstances where anaesthesia should be chosen? This session reviews options for sedation and explores factors, both with regard to the patient and the procedure, that will enable best practice. Most diagnostic and minor procedures require our patients to be sufficiently immobilised to allow for good patient safety and a successful procedure. In the healthy patient the use of sedation for most procedures will have little, if any impact on the animal. What about those more challenging cases – the aggressive or fearful cat, the geriatric patient with multiple comorbidities, or the cardiac case requiring a prolonged procedure. A question useful to ask is, can we safely give sufficient sedation to allow the procedure to be completed successfully and for the patient and veterinary team to be stress free? If the answer to this is yes, then sedation is most likely to be sufficient. What if it’s not? Finally, we explore options for providing good sedation in a number of case examples.

Monitoring for sedation: The importance of monitoring of patients during sedation is often underestimated. During the session we explore: why is close monitoring of these patients is so important?; the importance of an understanding of the agents used to sedate the patient and how these effect the monitoring picture; what should be monitored during sedation?; how can we maximise patient safety?; tailoring your monitoring techniques for different patients – practical hints, tricks and tips; techniques to maximise the effectiveness of monitoring devices – how to check they are accurate?; when sedation goes wrong – the early warning signs that the patient may not be coping and what to do; the recovery period – the forgotten period!