Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Sep 2006
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyIs there any need for expanding the perineural space before catheter placement in continuous femoral nerve blocks?
There is debate regarding the benefit of perineural space expansion before catheter placement in continuous femoral nerve block. This question is addressed in this prospective, comparative, and randomized study. ⋯ Expansion of the perineural space with D5W is useful for catheter placement in continuous femoral nerve block.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Sep 2006
Use of sequential electrical nerve stimuli (SENS) for location of the sciatic nerve and lumbar plexus.
Conventional electrical stimulation has been done by continuous adjustment of current amplitude at a single, set pulse duration (conventionally, 0.1 ms). This study evaluated a novel technique for nerve location by utilization of a peripheral-nerve stimulator (PNS) programmed to deliver sequential electrical nerve stimuli (SENS). A repeating series of alternating sequential pulses of 0.1, 0.3, and 1.0 ms at 1/3-second period intervals between pulses were generated so that at a greater distance from the nerve, only higher-duration pulses would stimulate the targeted nerve and result in 1 or 2 motor responses (MR) per second. Three MR per second at 0.5 mA or less signified the conventional endpoint for nerve location (=0.5 mA, 0.1 ms) because that value indicated that the 0.1-ms pulse was effective. The conventional 0.1-ms pulse served as a built-in control to which the SENS was compared. ⋯ SENS resulted in increased sensitivity without compromising specificity of nerve location.