Articles: pain-management.
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Multicenter Study
Follow up of pain reported by children undergoing outpatient surgery using a smartphone application: AlgoDARPEF multicenter descriptive prospective study.
In pediatric patients, pain remains the most common complaint after surgery. This French multicenter epidemiological study (AlgoDARPEF) aimed to evaluate the use of a smartphone application (App) to assess the duration and severity of pain experienced by children undergoing outpatient surgery. Children younger than 18 years scheduled for an elective outpatient procedure in one of the participating centers were eligible. ⋯ This study shows that inviting parents to use a smartphone App to assess and report the quality of postoperative management in pediatric patients provides useful information. A continuous report regarding pain and adverse events over a 10-day postoperative period by a self-reporting or parent's contribution is possible. Future studies should investigate the ability of live data collection using an App to ensure fast, efficient interactions between patients and physicians.
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Opioid analgesia is the cornerstone of anaesthetic management during cardiac surgery. However, a subset of patients use opioids persistently after three months of surgery. We discuss a recent meta-analysis and systematic review by Liu and colleagues describing both patient and peri-procedural risk factors that contribute to this phenomenon in the context of chronic pain after cardiac surgery. Anaesthetists for cardiac surgery should consider opioid alternatives and individual patient risk factors to optimise recovery and pain control.
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Pain management is critical to the management of patients in the emergency department (ED). The clinical decision-making process for prescribing medications is complicated by its subjective nature. Historically, racial and ethnic minority groups and women have not had their pain managed as aggressively as White and male patients. ⋯ Although differences in pain management practices have been explored previously, this study provided a large, updated, multifacility assessment that confirmed that race- and sex-based differences in pain management persist, specifically in the decision to treat with narcotics. Further investigation is warranted to determine the root causes of these differences.
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In order to prevent short-term complication, patients with frailty syndrome require special attention and care in the perioperative context. The implementation of a frailty screening and if possible, an advanced geriatric assessment in the clinical routine should take into account the clinical setting, the patient population as well as time and human resources. ⋯ Key aspects of such pathways include physiotherapeutic interventions, nutritional counselling, adequate pain medication, delirium prevention, patient blood management and extended perioperative monitoring. An interdisciplinary shared decision-making process together with patients can help develop realistic and individual treatment concepts to improve safety and outcome of frail patients.