Articles: analgesia.
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This survey aimed to determine what type of information patients want about the risks of postoperative pain management and whether this corresponded to the information that doctors and nurses wished to provide. Seventy-four patients scheduled for elective surgery, 50 nurses and 48 doctors completed a questionnaire asking about perceived risks of analgesia, level of acceptable risk and information that should be provided to patients. Compared to doctors and nurses, patients underestimated the risks associated with postoperative pain relief, except for the risk of drug addiction, which they rated higher. ⋯ Doctors were willing to accept a greater risk of minor side effects to achieve excellent pain relief than were patients. In contrast, patients were willing to accept a greater risk of serious side effects. The results obtained in this survey will facilitate the preparation of guidelines for obtaining informed consent from patients to receive postoperative analgesia.
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The forces required to break and to remove catheters from epidural spaces were investigated. Provided the patient's back is fully flexed and a slow steady pull is applied to the epidural catheter, the extraction forces required at both thoracic and lumbar levels are well below the minimum force required to break the same catheters.
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Anasthesiol Intensivmed Notfallmed Schmerzther · Oct 1993
Case Reports[Ambulatory epidural morphine analgesia via a transcutaneous implanted spinal catheter].
This report deals with a patient suffering from recurring rectum carcinoma infiltrating the lumbosacral plexus who received ambulant treatment with spinal opiate supply by a pump device, using a transcutaneous spinal catheter over a period of 12 weeks. The catheter turned out to be simple to implant. During the whole period no malfunctions occurred. This form of spinal analgesic treatment allowed the patient a relatively pain-free life outside the hospital.