Reducing post-traumatic morbidity with pain management

Since significant pain can adversely affect multiple organ systems, many anesthesiologists believe that effective pain control can decrease perioperative and post-trauma morbidity. To achieve the goal of attenuating the physiological stress response associated with trauma, modalities such as patient-controlled analgesia, epidural infusions and peripheral nerve blocks are being utilized. This article will review the physiological response to pain, the new strategies and techniques for providing pain relief, and recent literature that evaluates the effect of the newer pain modalities on perioperative morbidity.