The amount of time needed to recover can vary, but the average time spent in the hospital after surgery is three to seven days.1 Your healthcare team will closely monitor your overall health and perform tests to assess your basic brain functions, such as ask you a series of question to evaluate your memory, shine a light in your eyes and ask you to perform simple tasks.
Your doctor may give you medication to help relieve any pain. Swelling of your face and head is normal after surgery, so your bed may be kept raised to help reduce the swelling. You may need to wear an oxygen mask for a few days as well.
Use of image guided surgery is considered to help decrease risk of surgical error, reduce operating and hospital time and therefore potentially speed up recovery times.2
Thinking through post-surgical life with your family and friends can help decrease the stress of going home after brain surgery.
1 http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003018.htm
2 Paleologos TS, Wadley JP, Kitchen ND, Thomas DG. Clinical utility and cost-effectiveness of interactive image-guided craniotomy: clinical comparison between conventional and image-guided meningioma surgery. Neurosug. 2000;47(1):40–48; Omay SB, Barnett GH. Surgical navigation for meningioma surgery. J Neurooncol. 2010;99(3):357–364. doi: 10.1007/s11060-010-0359-6; Maciuanas RJ. Computer-assisted neurosurgery. Clin Neurosurg. 2006;53:267–271.
