Evaluation of cognitive & psychomotor skills perioperatively after administration of melatonin, clonidine and pregabalin as premedicant in laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Abstract

The addition of premedicative to the anesthesiologist armamentarium improves the anesthetic management and benefits the patients perioperatively. This prospective randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study included 160 patients aged 18-65 undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy under general anesthesia. Patients were randomly assigned to following groups (n= 40 each) Group D: Placebo (sugar pill) Group A: Melatonin (6mg) Group B: Clonidine (100mcg) and Group C Pregabalin (75mg) the night before and 60 minutes prior to surgery as oral premedicants. The following data was recorded; anxiety score, quality of sleep preoperatively and Trieger dot test (TDT) and digit symbol substitution test (DSST) preoperatively and then at 0, 30,60,90,6,12,24 h post operatively. The TDT and DSST score and time taken to complete DSST test was significantly less (p<0.05) in group A as compared to other groups at all time intervals. None of the subjects belonging to group B, C, D were able to perform cognitive and psychomotor test up to 60 min. This study reports melatonin as a premedicant has improved postoperative cognitive function and psychomotor skills as compared to pregabalin and clonidine in patients undergoing elective surgery.