Der Anaesthesist
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To determine how pain is assessed and managed in the early postoperative period, what the prescribing habits and general opinions on postoperative pain are, and what suggestions for future improvement could be made, questionnaires were sent to 430 anesthesia departments in the FRG. Of these, 188 were returned (38% response). ⋯ The study highlighted deficiencies in communication between the anesthetic staff and the patients that resulted in poor assessment of acute pain problems. The findings indicate a need to document pain and pain relief more often and more precisely in order to improve postoperative pain control.
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Invasive blood pressure monitoring is increasing in anesthesia and intensive care. Compared to noninvasive methods, it has some decisive advantages: (1) blood pressure trends can be assessed beat by beat, which is important especially in situations of cardiac arrhythmia; (2) respiratory changes in blood pressure as one sign of hypovolemia can be detected easily; and (3) pressure changes induced by the autonomic nervous system become apparent. We studied a new, reusable pressure transducer system, the Medex Novatrans-MX800 in routine intra- and postoperative monitoring of patients undergoing cardiac surgery using the following criteria: (1) handling; (2) accuracy of measurement; (3) durability; and (4) costs. ⋯ Two transducers showed errors of measurement over 5% after 60 times of reuse. The mean reusability rate until the transducer became defective was 75.8 +/- 17.3 in the operating room (19 transducers tested) and 59.7 +/- 29 in the intensive care unit (12 transducers tested, 11 still in use). A comparison of costs shows that the Novatrans-MX800 system is the cheapest system for invasive pressure monitoring available at this time.