Articles: nerve-block.
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The postoperative analgesic effect of opiate premedication and local anaesthetic blocks was studied in 929 patients having orthopaedic surgery. The median time to first request for postoperative analgesia was less than 2 h when neither opiate premedication nor block was used; opiate premedication increased the time significantly to more than 5 h; local anaesthetic block produced a further significant increase to 8 h and opiate premedication used with local anaesthetic block extended the median time further to more than 9 h. ⋯ Age had no significant effect. Prolonging the time before more pain relief is required may be worthwhile for both patients and staff.
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The similarities between phantom limb pain and preoperative limb pain have been noted, and this raises the possibility of modulating the pain by a preoperative blockade. The aim of this study was to investigate if it was possible to reduce postoperative phantom limb pain by giving lumbar epidural blockade (LEB) with bupivacaine and morphine for 72 h prior to the operation. 25 patients were interviewed about their limb pain before limb amputation, and about their phantom limb pain 7 days, 6 months and 1 year after limb loss. 11 patients, of mean age 77 years (52-93), received an LEB, so that they were pain-free for 3 days prior to operation. The control group, 14 patients of mean age 73.4 years (63.86), all had preoperative limb pain. ⋯ After 6 months all patients in the LEB group were pain-free, whilst 5 patients in the control group had pain (P less than 0.05). After 1 year, all the patients in the LEB group were still pain-free, and 3 patients in the control group had phantom limb pain (P less than 0.20). Preoperative lumbar epidural blockade with bupivacaine and morphine reduces the incidence of phantom limb pain in the first year after operation.
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Successful anaesthetic management of two patients with severe epidermolysis bullosa dystrophica was accomplished with the use of ketamine-diazepam dissociative anaesthesia in one and brachial plexus block in the other. The classification and pathology of epidermolysis bullosa is considered, and the problems associated with anaesthesia in patients with this disease are discussed.
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J Hand Surg Eur Vol · May 1988
Brachial plexus anaesthesia for upper limb surgery: a review of eight years' experience.
1248 supraclavicular brachial plexus blocks and 665 axillary plexus blocks were administered to 1913 patients undergoing upper limb surgery. Plexus block alone was successful in 83.5%. ⋯ The two percutaneous approaches to the brachial plexus did not differ in their success-rates but clinically apparent pneumothorax occurred in 0.8% of supraclavicular blocks. Brachial plexus block anaesthesia is recommended as a safe and satisfactory alternative to general anaesthesia for upper limb surgery.
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Regional-Anaesthesie · Apr 1988
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical Trial[Clinical effectiveness and systemic toxicity of various mixtures of prilocaine and bupivacaine in axillary plexus block].
The presently existing local anesthetics (LA) do not guarantee a rapid onset and simultaneously a long duration of action. The combination of a medium-long acting LA with bupivacaine, a long-acting LA with slow onset, could be means to achieve these aims. Prilocaine was chosen as the medium-long acting LA because it has the lowest toxicity of this group and for pharmacological reasons. ⋯ Forty minutes after injection there were no significant differences between the groups. Motor blockade after 20 min was significantly lower in the bupivacaine group than in the prilocaine group (P less than 0.05). After 4 h all three prilocaine-bupivacaine mixtures showed a significantly more pronounced analgesia of the median nerve than the prilocaine group (P less than 0.02-0.001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)