**2.4.5 Awareness and recall**

The cardiac surgical patients are at increased risk for intraoperative awareness and recall, especially due to intentional avoidance of the cardiodepressant volatile anesthetics in the presence of hemodynamic instability, mostly caused by surgical manipulations of the heart and great vessels, leading to light anesthesia periods. As the volatile anesthetics have been proven to provide preconditioning before CPB, they began to have a major role in cardiac anesthesia protocols reducing the risk of awareness (London et al,2008).
