Smacc

Updates in pain management by Gavin Pattullo Opioids are often a mainstay of therapy in trauma pain, though they are in turn the cause of much trauma. For every 4000 Australians prescribed an opioid there will be one death in the community as a result. In-patients similarly have greater risk of harm when their analgesia is opioid based. This presentation will focus on some of the valuable lessons learnt in pain management resulting from the opioid crisis. These include: Our need to differentiate clinically between pain and nociception. Pain - the affective unpleasant experience - is assessed by clinicians enquiring with the use of the words: coping, bothersomeness and troubling. While nociception is focussed on asking about physical feelings and sensations. Profound levels of nociception and the potential to lead to reports of significant pain, a major feature of trauma patients, requires firstly a focus on the two most effective anti-nociceptive strategies of neural blockade and NSAIDs/COX-2 inhibitors bef