Analgesia in intensive care unit: something truly counts

Abstract

Critical patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) are often accompanied with acute pain, which may lead to a series of physiological responses that affect the prognosis of patients. With the continuous advancement of modern medicine, the pain management strategies and analgesics have also greatly developed, and the concept has been continuously updated. In the individualized diagnosis and treatment mode, the pain management is an indispensable component of ICU comprehensive treatment. Multimodal analgesia (MMA) strategies have also shown to be effective in optimizing analgesia in critical patients. However, there are still many shortcomings and differences in pain evaluation and its management. The characteristics and methodologies of related analgesics need to be further summarized and discussed. The current literature about the evaluation of pain, pharmacology and non-pharmacological techniques were reviewed to provide references for the scientific and reasonable implementation of analgesia treatment in ICU.