AACN clinical issues最新文献

The endogenous opioid system is one of the most studied innate pain-relieving systems. This system consists of widely scattered neurons that produce three opioids: beta-endorphin, the met- and leu-enkephalins, and the dynorphins. These opioids act as neurotransmitters and neuromodulators at three major classes of receptors, termed mu, delta, and kappa, and produce analgesia. Like their endogenous counterparts, the opioid drugs, or opiates, act at these same receptors to produce both analgesia and undesirable side effects. This article examines some of the recent findings about the opioid system, including interactions with other neurotransmitters, the location and existence of receptor subtypes, and how this information drives the search for better analgesics. We also consider how an understanding of the opioid system affects clinical responses to opiate administration and what the future may hold for improved pain relief. The goal of this article is to assist clinicians to develop pharmacological interventions that better meet their patient's analgesic needs.

Despite the seemingly daily advances in the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention for coronary artery disease, many patients will ultimately experience progression of their disease and experience angina refractory to further active treatment. In these patients, disabling angina occurs at rest or during simple activities of daily living. When this occurs, symptom management, a predominant focus of nursing, becomes the goal of care. Several medical and surgical alternatives are available to patients with refractory angina. Enhanced external counterpulsation and transmyocardial laser revascularization are Food and Drug Administration approved therapies that can be used to attempt to restore the balance of supply and demand. Modulation of sympathetic tone via procedures such as stellate ganglion blocks has also been employed. Other methods to control the pain are techniques that alter pain perception such as spinal opioids, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, and spinal cord stimulation. Too few patients with refractory angina are referred for any of these palliative therapies. Armed with knowledge regarding these therapies, nurses will be better prepared to provide anticipatory guidance to patients and their families and to support the patient's hope for relief as they cope with this devastating condition.

Orofacial pain is a common complaint, affecting the lives of millions of people around the world. Chronic orofacial pain often constitutes a challenging diagnostic problem that can be complicated by psychosocial factors and typically requires multidisciplinary treatment approaches. The fundamental prerequisite for successful management of orofacial pain is an accurate diagnosis. Generating a differential diagnosis, which will ultimately lead to a definite diagnosis, requires thorough knowledge of the diagnostic range of orofacial pain. There is a vast array of orofacial pain categories including: (1) musculoskeletal, (2) neuropathic, (3) vascular, (4) neurovascular, (5) idiopathic, (6) pain caused by local, distant, or systemic pathology, and (7) psychogenic. This article presents the salient clinical features and the therapeutic approaches for the various subtypes of musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain. Musculoskeletal pain is the most prevalent orofacial pain, with temporomandibular disorders and tension-type headache being the main examples. Neuropathic pain develops secondary to neural injury and/or irritation and can be distinguished into episodic, including trigeminal neuralgia and glossopharyngeal neuralgia, as well as continuous, such as herpetic and postherpetic neuralgia, traumatic neuralgia, and Eagle's syndrome.

The nurse practitioner in pediatric critical care is a distinct advanced practice nursing role that has seen a tremendous increase in development and implementation over the past 10 years. There is a paucity of literature on this unique and valuable role. A total of 74 nurse practitioners practicing in pediatric critical care were surveyed. Part I of the survey solicited descriptive information of the nurse practitioner including background, work environment, reporting structure, and salary. The respondents also identified their role responsibilities that included direct patient management, nursing and medical education, coordination of care, research, and consultation. Part II of the questionnaire addressed skill level and need for supervision for technical procedures and leadership activities. These respondents described expert or proficient skill levels for the majority of technical procedures (ie, lumbar puncture, central line placement) and leadership activities (ie, discharge planning, participation in medical rounds). This is the first published report to delineate the role of the nurse practitioner in pediatric critical care based on responses from a national survey.

Chronic orofacial pain is a common health complaint faced by health practitioners today and constitutes a challenging diagnostic problem that often requires a multidisciplinary approach to diagnosis and treatment. The previous article by the same authors in this issue discussed the major clinical characteristics and the treatment of various musculoskeletal and neuropathic orofacial pain conditions. This second article presents aspects of vascular, neurovascular, and idiopathic orofacial pain, as well as orofacial pain due to various local, distant, or systemic diseases and psychogenic orofacial pain. The emphasis in this article is on the general differential diagnosis and various therapeutic regimens of each of these conditions. An accurate diagnosis is the key to successful treatment of chronic orofacial pain. Given that for many of the entities discussed in this article no curative treatment is available, current standards of management are emphasized. A comprehensive reference section has been included for those who wish to gain further information on a particular entity.

The purpose of the study was to compare a heel stick conducted during Kangaroo Care (skin-to-skin contact) with the mother to a heel stick in a warmer in reducing premature infant physiologic and behavioral pain responses. Twenty-four premature infants in a university-based neonatal intensive care unit were recruited and randomized to 2 sequences: sequence A group received 3 hours of Kangaroo Care (with a heel stick in Kangaroo Care) followed by 3 hours in a warmer (with a heel stick in the warmer). Sequence B group had warmer care and a heel stick (in the warmer) before Kangaroo Care and a heel stick (in Kangaroo Care). Heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation, crying time, and behavioral state were measured before, during, and after heel stick. Repeated measures ANOVA and Mann Whitney U statistics were performed. Heart rate and length of crying in response to pain were significantly reduced during Kangaroo Care and the Kangaroo Care heel stick as compared to when infants were in the warmer and had a heel stick in the warmer. Three infants did not cry at all during the Kangaroo Care heel stick; infants slept more during Kangaroo Care than in the warmer. Kangaroo Care positioning before and during heel stick is a simple and inexpensive analgesic intervention to ameliorate pain in stable premature infants.

Surgery is well-known to result in the suppression of some immune functions; however, the role of perioperative pain has only recently been studied. Pain-relieving anesthesia techniques and perioperative analgesia provide some protection against surgery-induced immune suppression and infectious surgical sequelae, although few studies also assess postoperative pain. Attributing a biological consequence to the observed immune alterations remains an issue in human studies, and the use of immune sensitive tumor models in animals enables the linking of immune changes with disease and a means by which to explore causal relationships among surgery-related pain, immune function, and metastatic development. There is strong evidence in animals that pain-relieving interventions significantly reduce the tumor-enhancing effects of undergoing and recovering from surgery. It cannot be assumed that animal findings are directly applicable to the human condition; however, if such relationships hold in humans, perioperative pain management becomes an important strategy for reducing postoperative sequelae.

Despite the many advances in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying pain processing, pain continues to be a major healthcare problem in the United States. Each day, millions of Americans are affected by both acute and chronic pain conditions, costing in excess of $100 billion for treatment-related costs and lost work productivity. Thus, it is imperative that better treatment strategies be developed. One step toward improving pain management is through increased knowledge of pain physiology. Within the nervous system, there are several pathways that transmit information about pain from the periphery to the brain. There is also a network of pathways that carry modulatory signals from the brain and brainstem that alter the incoming flow of pain information. This article provides a review to the physiology and processing of pain.

Acute pain assessment and management and their accurate documentation have been identified by The Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organization as significant components of the emergency department experience. Research studies have historically focused on the subjective perception of the physician or nurse for evidence of acute musculoskeletal pain assessment for the patient; however, the lack of interrater reliability between caregivers and patients has illustrated the need to evaluate the patient's perception of pain. A review of the literature for acute musculoskeletal pain in the emergency department shows that a patient's pain experience is often underestimated, and severity of pain often does not predict pain management. Relying on patient satisfaction surveys as a surrogate marker for effectiveness of pain management is inadequate, and factors, such as age, gender, or ethnicity, may contribute to a disparity in pain management. The purpose of this article is to review pain management practices for patients with acute musculoskeletal pain who present to the emergency department and to provide recommendations for advanced practice nurses working with this emergency department patient population. Promising areas for future research include targeting mechanisms of pain with specific medications, identifying vulnerable populations at risk for inadequate pain management, and universal use of a standardized pain rating scale.

The assessment and management of pain in children is not always easy and it is clearly more difficult in the critical care setting. Pain management is further complicated in this vulnerable population by the nature of their critical condition, the complexity and multidimensionality of their illness or injuries, and the intensity of emotions in this environment. A variety of pain syndromes are encountered in the pediatric intensive care unit, and the staff there may not be familiar with or comfortable managing these cases. Pain assessment and treatment can be more appropriately managed when guided by the experts of a multidisciplinary pediatric pain service.