W3: Pain management Flashcards
Define pain
An unpleasant sensory or emotional experience due to actual or potential tissue damage, is a perception.
How can pain be classified based on duration?
Acute - less that 6 weeks, often only lasts around 1 week.
Sub-acute - 6 to 12 weeks
Chronic - 12 weeks onwards
Acute on chronic - flare up
How can pain be classified based on its nature?**
Nociceptive
Neuropathic
Mixed
Visceral
Malignant/cancer pain
What are the key feature of acute pain?
Physiological response to tissue damage
Acts as a warning signal to indicate damage
Helps locate the source of the problem
Has biological value as a symptom
Fits within the biomedical model
Is normally self limiting
Why is pain a problem in surgery?
Very common - 86% post-surgery, 74% post-discharge.
12% of patients the pain gets worse between surgery and discharge
Current classificiation systems to not accurately describe patient pain profile.
What are the problems of how we assess pain?
- taxonomies do not capture the dynamics of pain (e.g over a 24hr period)
- pain taxonomies often result in poorly individualised management plans
What factors cause variable responses to analgesics?
Older patient are more sensitivite to opiods
Ethnicity
Psychological factors
Genetics: gene polymorphisms influence efficacy of drug
The type of intraoperative anaesthetic techniques: regional v general, and if adjuncts are used or not
Type of surgical procedure.
What are some effects on inadequate acute pain management on the patient?
Increased hospital stay or more frequent admissions
Reduced quality of life
Impaired physical function
Decreased functional recovery
increased complications
Impaired sleep during the recovery process.
What are the medical consequences if acute pain is not managed successfully?
Severe acute postoperative pain is a risk factor for chronic pain if not managed effectively.
Pain can progress and remain present
Result of complex biochemical and pathophysiological mechanisms.
Define chronic pain
Persistent or recurrent pain, that lasts beyond the usual course of acute illness (more than 3 months) and adversely affects the patient’s well-being.
What are the key features of chronic pain?
Difficult to diagnose and treat
Subjective to personal experience
Cannot be measured except by behaviour
May originate from a physical source by slowing out-shouting to become the disease
Has no biologic value as a symptoms
Life is permanently disrupted.
What are the different domains of chronic pain?
Quality of life
Psychological Morbidity
Socioeconomic consequences
Social consequences
How does chronic pain affect quality of life?
Affects physical functioning
Ability to perform activities or daily living
Work
Recreation
How does chronic pain affect psychological morbidity?
Risk of depression
Anxiety
Anger
Sleep disturbances
Loss of self-esteem
How does chronic pain cause social consequences?
Effect marital/family relations
Intimal and sexual activity
Social isolation
What are the socioeconomic consequences of chronic pain?
Healthcare costs
Disability - discrimination in society
Lost workdays
What are the key differences between acute and chronic pain?
Cause: acute known, chronic not
Duration: acute short and well-characterised, chronic more than 3 months, perists after healing
Treatment: acute - self limited, chronic - focus on pain control not cure.
What is meant by nociceptive pain?
Activity in neural pathways in response to potential or actual tissue-damaging stimuli.
Often described as throbbing, aching or pressure-like.
What is meant by neuropathic pain?
Disease or injury (primary lesion) affecting the nervous system.
Often described as electrical-like and shooting pain.
What is meant by mixed pain?
Caused by a combination of primary injury and secondary effects.
Combination of nociceptive, neuropathic and nociplastic.
What are some examples of nociceptive pain?
Post surgery pain
Arthiritic pain
Injury/trauma
Sickle cell crisis
What are some examples of neuropathic pain?
Neuropathic low back pain
Post-herpetic neuralgia
Distal polyneuropathy such as diabetic
Complex regional pain syndrome
Central post stroke pain
Trigeminal neuralgia
What are the different proposed mechanisms for the pathophysiology of neuropathic pain?
Chemical excitation on non-nociceptors
Recruitment of nerves outside the site on injury
Excitotoxicity (glutamate cause death of central neurons)
Sodium channels
Ectopic discharge
Deafferentation - loss of sensory input from a body part
Central sensitisation - maintained by peripheral input
Sympathetic involvement
Antidromic neurogenicic inflammation
What are the different pain assessment scales?
Numerical Rating Scale
Visual Analog Scale
Defense and Veterans Pain rating scale (DVPRS)
Adult Non-Verbal Pain scale (NVPS)
Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia Scale
Behavioural Pain Scale
Critical-Care observation Tool (CPOT)
What it the WHO pain ladder?
Seperates pain into three categories of steps in order to guide treatment plans
1: Mild pain - non-opiod with or without adjuvant analgestic
2: mild to moderate pain -opiods for milf to moderal pain, plus non opiod with/without adjuvant
3: moderate to severe pain - strong opiod, non-opiod, with/without adjuvant
Should move up the pain ladder is pain is persisting
Should move down the pain ladder is shows signs of toxicity or severe side effects.
What is meant by multimodal therapy?
How does this relate to pain management?
The synchronous administration of 3 or more pharmacological agents or approaches, each with a distinct mechanism of action
Is recommended whenever possible
Why is multimodal therapy thought to be beneficial?
Targets different pathways
Synergism - combined effect is greater than the isolated effect of any single drug
Allows dose reduction of individual agents - reduces the potential for side effects.
What are the different types of techniques that may be used to manage post-operative pain?
Systemic opioid patient-controlled analgesia
Epidural or intrathecal opioids
Regional techniques
What are some examples of non-opioid systemic analgesics?
Paracetamol (oral, rectal or injectable)
NSAIDs (oral or injectable)
Gabapentinoid (adjuvant)
Evaluate the use of paracetamol in pain management
+similia benefit to IV PCA opiod
+ Fewer adverse reactions that opiods
- risk of liver damage and overdose if not used correctly
Evaluate the use on NSAIDs in pain management.
+Improve pain scores
+Reduced analgesic use
-NSAID associated risk and adverse reactions such as GI bleed.
Evaluate the use of gabapentionois for analgesics
+ when combined with opiods have improved pain scores and reduce anglesic use
- no noticeable disadvantages
What are the different methods of giving systemic opiods to a patient?
Staff adminstered IM injections
Staff administered IV injection
PCA without bagkground infusion
PCA with background infusion
Evaluate the use of IM injected systemic opiods
+ pain reduction
- pain on injection
- tissue damage
Evaluate the use of IV systemic opiod injections
+ similar pain control to PCA
- peak and trough levels and the associated adverse reactions.
Evaluate the use of patient control analgesic for systemic opioid administration
+ improved pain scores compared to IM injections
- when given without background infusion there tends to be an increased analgesic use