Drug Aging
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Review Comparative Study
Practical guidelines on the postoperative use of patient-controlled analgesia in the elderly.
Inadequate pain control after surgery is associated with adverse outcomes in elderly patients; for this reason, effective analgesia is an essential component of postoperative care in this patient group. However, postoperative pain management is challenging in the elderly because of concomitant disease states and physiological factors that can affect the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties of analgesic drugs. Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) offers advantages over traditional intramuscular analgesia in this setting, because it provides the opportunity to tailor therapy to the individual, as opposed to the average, patient. ⋯ Education of patients and healthcare professionals alike is necessary to optimise the utility of PCA in older patients. In addition, every effort should be made to avoid the development of postoperative confusion, as this is associated with an increased risk of inefficient pain relief and its deleterious consequences. In summary, close monitoring and evaluation of the patient throughout the peri-operative periods is required to ensure the appropriate and successful use of PCA in elderly patients.
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Antiarrhythmic drugs play a major role in the management of the most common types of arrhythmias. The margin between the beneficial and toxic effects of these drugs is often narrow. Thus, a precise knowledge of dosages, drug-target tissue interactions, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of antiarrhythmic drugs is needed to better predict how effective a particular drug will be in the treatment of a specific arrhythmia in a given patient. ⋯ The results of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST) firmly established that the use of class I drugs is potentially dangerous in a specific subset of patients. Additionally, several meta-analyses have reported that quinidine has severe proarrhythmic effects in patients with atrial fibrillation. The management of arrhythmias in elderly patients is difficult because of age-related factors that may influence the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of antiarrhythmic drugs.
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It is likely that the trend towards ever more aggressive surgery in elderly and possibly frail patients will continue, with the lifting of traditional age limits. Recent evidence has show that surgical trauma induces processes of nervous system sensitisation that contributes to and enhances postoperative pain and leads to chronic pain. This knowledge provides a rational basis for pro-active, pre-operative and post-operative analgesic strategies which can reduce the neuronal barrage associated with tissue damage. ⋯ Complete pain control cannot be achieved with a single agent or technique without significant serious adverse effects, a problem which is compounded in the elderly patient due to a combination of slower drug metabolism, decreased organ function and physiological changes in cardiovascular and respiratory reserves. A balanced analgesic regimen that includes an effective afferent block (regional analgesia) is more appropriate. By preventing postoperative pain and its associated neuroendocrine sequelae, major surgical procedures in traditionally unsuitable patients can be seriously considered.