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Article: Roadblock to recovery: the surgical stress response.
- Article from:
- Dynamics
- Article date:
- March 22, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Canadian Association of Critical Care Nurses. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Background
Selye (1946) developed the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) as a paradigm of biological stress. He defined the GAS as "the sum of all non-specific, systemic reactions of the body which ensue upon long continued exposures to stress" (Selye, 1946, p. 119). Selye described the phases of GAS as alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. In the alarm stage, the central nervous system is stimulated. "It should be emphasized that the alarm reaction is not necessarily a pathologic phenomenon" (Selye, 1946, p. 131). If the stressor is mild and of short duration, the alarm reaction is part of a physiological adaptive process. Resistance is the stage in which the body's ...