Analgesia and sedation in surgery Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

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The goals of analgesia and sedation at the intensive care unit (ICU) are to facilitate mechanical ventilation, prevent patient and caregiver injury, and avoid the psychological and physiologic consequences of inadequate treatment of pain, anxiety, agitation, and delirium. Most ICU patients, especially the surgical and trauma ones, routinely experience pain at rest and with routine procedures. Treating pain in ICU patients depends on a clinician?s ability to perform a reproducible pain assessment and to monitor patients over time to determine the adequacy of therapeutic interventions to treat pain. Implementation of behavioral pain scales improves ICU pain management and clinical outcomes, including better use of analgesic and sedative agents and shorter durations of mechanical ventilation and ICU stay. Opioids are the primary medications for managing pain in critically ill patients. Multimodal approach to pain management in ICU patients has been recommended. Sedatives are commonly administered to ICU patients to treat agitation and its negative consequences. Sedation strategies using nonbenzodiazepine sedatives (propofol or dexmedetomidine) may be preferred over sedation with benzodiazepines (midazolam or lorazepam) to improve clinical outcomes in mechanically ventilated adult ICU patients. It is recommend daily sedation interruption or a light target level of sedation be routinely used in adult intensive care patients using mechanical ventilation. Delirium affecting up to 80% of mechanically ventilated adult ICU patients. ICU protocols that combine routine pain and sedation assessments, with pain management and sedation-minimizing strategies, along with delirium monitoring and prevention, may be the best strategy for avoiding the complications of oversedation. Protocolized pain, agitation and delirium assessment (PAD ICU), is significantly associated with a reduction in the use of analgesic medications, ICU length of stay, and duration of mechanical ventilation.