Pain-free operations by hypnosis

Last updated at 10:43 04 August 2005


Doctors have come up with a way to carry out major surgery without general anaesthetic - by using hypnosis.

Their procedure, known as 'hypnosedation' puts patients in a trance before the operation and they feel no pain despite being awake throughout.

Almost 5,000 operations in Belgium are carried out this way.

Patients are usually given only a local anaesthetic and a small amount of analgesic drugs.

However, operations on the stomach, chest or orthopaedic surgery, when it is impossible to numb all the nerves, are still carried out using general anaesthetic.

Most watched News videos