A care
system and associated methods are provided for alleviating patient pain,
anxiety and discomfort associated with medical or
surgical procedures, the
system comprising: at least one patient health monitor device coupled to a patient and generating a
signal reflecting at least one
physiological condition of the patient; a
drug delivery controller supplying one or more drugs to the patient; a memory device storing a safety
data set reflecting parameters of the at least one
patient physiological condition; and an
electronic controller interconnected between the patient health monitor, the
drug delivery controller and the safety
data set; wherein said
electronic controller manages the application of the drugs in accord with the safety
data set. In another aspect of the invention, the care
system facilitates a procedural physician's safely and efficaciously providing conscious
sedation to a patient by additionally providing a
consciousness monitoring system which monitors the
consciousness of the patient and generates a value representing the level of patient
consciousness. Methods for alleviating patient pain and
anxiety in accordance with the invention comprise connecting a
drug delivery device to a patient, such device having a
drug delivery controller supplying one or more drugs and being coupled to an
electronic controller; attaching at least one patient health monitor device to the patient; accessing a memory device which stores a safety data set reflecting parameters of at least one
patient physiological condition; and delivering the drugs to the patient in accord with the safety data set. In further aspects of the invention, the consciousness
monitoring system is an automated consciousness
monitoring system which includes patient query and response devices. Additional embodiments of the system and methods are directed to alleviating patient pain or discomfort while enabling safe patient controlled
drug delivery in correlation with the monitoring of patient health conditions.