Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
-
Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jan 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialLong-term pain and functional disability after total knee arthroplasty with and without single-injection or continuous sciatic nerve block in addition to continuous femoral nerve block: a prospective, 1-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial.
This is a follow-up to determine long-term outcomes after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in patients enrolled in a previous randomized trial that found reduced postoperative pain after addition of sciatic nerve block to continuous femoral nerve block for TKA. ⋯ No differences were detected in the secondary outcomes we examined. Thus, improved postoperative outcome did not translate into improved functional outcome or long-term pain.
-
Reg Anesth Pain Med · Jan 2013
The utility of ultrasound imaging in predicting ease of performance of spinal anesthesia in an orthopedic patient population.
Ultrasonography of the spine improves technical performance of spinal anesthesia, but what is unclear is whether it can predict difficulty. We tested the hypothesis that a good ultrasound view at a given intervertebral level is associated with absence of technical difficulty. ⋯ Ultrasound can be useful in predicting the absence of technical difficulty in performing dural puncture and thus in selecting the optimal intervertebral level for spinal anesthesia.