Analgesia and sedation in critically ill patients

In critically ill patients, adequate analgesia and sedation increase comfort, reduce stress response and facilitate diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Analgesia and sedation may also have a beneficial impact on morbidity, particularly by reducing pulmonary complications such as atelectasis and pneumonia, and delirium or agitation with subsequent accidental extubation. The method and depth of analgesia and sedation should be adapted to the needs of the individual patient. While evaluation of analgesia and sedation is important, technical tools for assessment are generally unreliable. Accordingly, management of these patients is best guided by simple clinical scores, though there is no consensus on how frequently pain and sedation should be evaluated. While there is some degree of consensus on what constitutes an acceptable level of pain relief, the same is not true of sedation, with the attendant risk of over-sedation. Analgesia and sedation are performed chiefly by pharmacological means. The first step includes adequate analgesia, usually with opioids. There is no evidence of a difference in efficacy between opioids as far as clinically relevant outcomes are concerned. However, there is some evidence that more sophisticated methods of opioid administration, such as patient-controlled analgesia, may improve pulmonary outcomes. In Europe, midazolam and propofol are most frequently used for sedation of the critically ill. Regular evaluation of the effect of these drugs and subsequent adaptation of dosage are more important than the choice of specific analgesics and hypnotics. Implementation of guidelines for rational analgesia and sedation would help to reduce patients' length of stay in the intensive care unit.