Acute pain therapy in orthopedics/trauma surgery

Abstract

The management of acute pain is of utmost importance in the treatment regimen of orthopedic and trauma patients. Pain perception is different for each patient and has to be individually addressed. Especially in a postoperative setting often with a very dynamic course of pain, it is optimal that the pain management is adapted to the individual course of pain. In this situation it makes sense to apply patient-controlled systems. By combining different analgesic substance classes and non-pharmaceutical therapy in the sense of a multimodal concept, the mechanisms of action complement each other and side effects can be reduced. Patient satisfaction is higher when they are actively involved in the (medicinal) pain therapy and in the decision making. This is particularly important for patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). In addition to invasive catheter administration procedures, there are also modern approaches for oral individual self-administered opioid treatment.