Articles: opioid.
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Sleep medicine reviews · Jun 2014
ReviewPostoperative sleep disruptions: a potential catalyst of acute pain?
Despite the substantial advances in the understanding of pain mechanisms and management, postoperative pain relief remains an important health care issue. Surgical patients also frequently report postoperative sleep complaints. Major sleep alterations in the postoperative period include sleep fragmentation, reduced total sleep time, and loss of time spent in slow wave and rapid eye movement sleep. ⋯ Nevertheless, little is known about the relationship between postoperative sleep and pain. Although the sleep-pain interaction has been addressed from both ends, this review focuses on the impact of sleep disruptions on pain perception. A better understanding of the effect of postoperative sleep disruptions on pain perception would help in selecting patients at risk for more severe pain and may facilitate the development of more effective and safer pain management programs.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Jun 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialProlonged perioperative infusion of low-dose ketamine does not alter opioid use after pediatric scoliosis surgery.
Opioid consumption after posterior spinal fusion is known to be high and often exceeds those reported in other major surgical procedures. A number of clinical trials provide evidence that the perioperative use of subanesthetic doses of ketamine reduces pain and opioid requirements in some surgical procedures, but the effect of prolonged perioperative low-dose ketamine infusion in patients undergoing posterior spinal fusion for pediatric scoliosis surgery is unknown. ⋯ These findings do not support the use of perioperative low-dose ketamine to decrease opioid use in children with scoliosis undergoing posterior spinal fusion.
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The objective of this study was to identify best practices and provide guidance to clinicians to ensure safety and optimize intrathecal drug delivery for chronic intractable pain. ⋯ Intrathecal drug delivery is a valuable alternative drug delivery system for many patients with severe chronic or end-of-life pain. While device-related complications (mostly with catheters) and surgical-site infections can occur, the main therapy-related safety issues associated with intrathecal drug delivery arise primarily with inadequate patient monitoring (e.g., respiratory depression), inflammatory mass (e.g., high doses and concentrations of opioids), wound healing, dosing errors (e.g., medication concentration and pump programming), pump fills or refills (e.g., pocket fills), and interaction with concomitant systemic medications (e.g., opioids and benzodiazepines). Many of the reported adverse events and complications of intrathecal drug delivery can be prevented by adequate clinician training, implementation of best practices, and experience. In adopting the therapy, patients must be apprised of its risks and benefits. Physicians and patients must partner to achieve both safety and effectiveness.
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The treatment of cancer pain is paramount to both medical practitioner and patient in order to maximize quality of life. Cancer pain results from direct tumor effects as well as from surgical and medical treatments. Despite therapeutic advancements, morbidity and mortality in cancer care remains high, often from local recurrence or metastasis. ⋯ Opioids have been shown to cause immunosuppression and stimulate malignant cells in vitro, though adjunct analgesics may additionally promote tumor cell growth. These results have led many to hypothesize that regional analgesic techniques may offer survival advantages to systemic analgesics. Thus far, the data do not support specific analgesic recommendations for the cancer patient, though ongoing prospective, randomized clinical trials are under way to better characterize the safest analgesic regimens for cancer patients.
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Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a common condition characterized by paresthesia and an urge to move. Predominantly, symptoms occur at rest in the evening or at night, and they are alleviated by moving the affected extremity. RLS prevalence in the general population has been estimated to be approximately 5%. ⋯ Pharmacological treatment should be limited to those patients who suffer from clinically relevant RLS, that is, when symptoms impair the patient's quality of life, daytime functioning, social functioning or sleep. Treatment on demand is a clinical need in some RLS patients, and medications include carbidopa/levodopa, pramipexole, ropinirole, oxycodone, methadone, codeine and tramadol. Chronic RLS should be treated with either a nonergot dopamine agonist or an α-2-δ calcium channel ligand. A dopamine agonist is a more appropriate choice in the presence of depression and overweight. As α-2-δ ligands can alleviate chronic pain and may be helpful in treating anxiety and insomnia, the presence of any of these comorbidities may favor their use. For RLS present through much of the day and night, the use of long-acting agents, such as the rotigotine patch or gabapentin enacarbil should be considered. In refractory RLS, oral prolonged release oxycodone-naloxone should be considered.