Do anesthetized patients experience sleep deprivation?

Question

Anesthesia induces a state of globally decreased brain activity, not sleep.

Sleep is actually an active time for certain parts of the brain.

Do people who are sedated for days on end exhibit signs of sleep deprivation, like REM rebound, when they awake? Or because there is no awake time to accumulate sleep debt, is it a zero sum activity?

Answer 1

I'm frankly not sure.  I suppose it would depend on how much REM sleep they actually were deprived of during the procedure but I cannot quote rigorous literature in helping to address this issue.  My apologies.

Answer 2

Excellent question, and one for which I have no answer.  You're right about anesthesia not being sleep.

One thing that I've noticed with propofol, though, which is used for long term ICU sedation, is that for short cases using propofol as the primary anesthetic, patients awake feeling rested.

Longer cases that use the gases, opiates and other drugs don't seem to produce the same result.  Those patients seem to need more sleep, although part of that is breathing off residual gas.

Very good question.