Current Concepts in Postoperative Pain Management Surgeries of Hip Joint: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Hip surgery is a common surgical procedure in the elderly and leads to significant pain postoperatively. The hip joint has a complex innervation which is unlikely to be covered with any single modality of pain relief. Multimodal analgesia has been critical in facilitating early recovery and rehabilitation in these patients. Regional analgesia is an important component of multimodal analgesia regimens and is instrumental in achieving optimal patient outcomes. Single shot or continuous central or peripheral nerve blocks provide effective and safe postoperative analgesia, lower opioid consumption, faster rehabilitation, and a high level of patient satisfaction. An ideal regional anaesthesia technique for hip surgery should be motor sparing while providing effective perioperative pain relief. Regional anaesthesia has seen enormous growth in the recent past due to advances in technology and research. These blocks have shown analgesic efficacy, have an opioid-sparing effect, and enable better patient positioning for central neuraxial blocks. Some of the novel interfascial plane blocks like Pericapsular Nerve Group (PENG) block are now being explored for hip analgesia. Within a few years of being described, these novel nerve blocks have seen tremendous favour in the literature and are being extensively used in the current practice of analgesia for hip surgery. In the present review, we aim to discuss the various modalities of analgesia which have been utilised in the past and would discuss few of the newer blocks for hip surgery. Keywords: Nerve blocks, Ultrasonography, Analgesics, Total hip arthroplasty, Fascia illiaca block, Multimodal analgesia, Transmuscular, Quadratus lumborum block