Tests of recovery from anaesthesia and sedation: intravenous diazepam in dentistry.

SUMMARY Simple pencil and paper tests of performance were used to measure the state of recovery of patients undergoing intravenous sedation for outpatient dental surgery. Suitable criteria have been devised to distinguish with 80% accuracy those who were and those who were not as completely recovered as patients who underwent treatment under local analgesia alone. Repetition of the test is expected to give an indication of when the individual patient is sufficiently recovered to go home from the outpatient clinic.