Analgesia and sedation in hemodynamic unstable patient

Abstract

Pain, restlessness, tension and delirium are almost always encountered while treating hemodynamic unstable critical patients in the intensive care units. Usually in critical patients, the evaluation of the nature and pain intensity (VAS scale) are often impossible. During the last 10 years intense nociceptor somatic and visceral post operative pain is believed to be the most crucial factor in the development of endocrine and neurohumoral disorders, within the postoperative period. Chronic post operative pain is appearing often (30%-40%), with great influence on the quality of patients life. The modern principal in treating acute pain is the use of multimodal balanced analgesia approach, which is individually catered with drug and dose for each patient. Modern systemic analgesia is understood to be the continuous use of opiates or opioids, titrated towards pain intensity, with a minimum number of complications even in hemodynamic unstable patients. The combined use of opioids with NSAID and paracetamol reduces the overall dosage of opioids by 20% - 30% and therefore significantly contributes to hemodynamic and respiratory stability. Effective and safe epidural analgesia in hemodynamic unstable patients can be optimized by simultaneous use of various drugs with different mechanisms of action (local anaesthetic, opioid, adrenalin, ketamin). The accepted concept of analgosedation in critical patients is understood to be the use of short acting drugs (fentanyl, sufentanil, remifentanil, midazolam, propofol) in which drug dosage can be quickly adjusted in respect to the present clinical state of the patient.