Acute Pain Management: A Practical Guide

Acute Pain Management: A Practical Guide is intended to give readers a better understanding of the conventional methods of analgesia as well as the more advanced techniques that are now routinely used for the management of acute pain, such as patient-controlled, epidural and continuous regional analgesia.

The book explores pain control in more complex patients such as those with acute-on-chronic pain, acute cancer pain or acute pain from a multitude of medical conditions as well as those who are opioid-tolerant have acute neuropathic pain, or are elderly. In addition to new chapters on changes in clinical practice, added to each section are key points that highlight the level of evidence available for that topic. These points have been reproduced with permission from the acute pain guidelines published by the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and Faculty of Pain Medicine, Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence - both authors were members of the working party responsible for this document - and annotated according to the system recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia.

• Gives comprehensive cover of all of the areas of importance in the management of acute pain
• Presents highly practical information firmly supported by full evaluation of the scientific literature
• Concisely written text supplemented with useful checklists, flow charts and key points that can be readily referred to during treatment of a patient
• Gives a series of acute pain management plans, whilst at the same time discussing controversial areas and possible solutions
• Explores pain control in complex cases – opioid-tolerant patients, pregnant and lactating patients, patients with hepatic and renal impairment and the elderly
• Discusses the important areas of acute neuropathic pain and the transition from acute to persistent pain
• Key self-assessment questions and answers

• New chapters on assessment and monitoring highlight the importance of regular patient assessment and the need to individualize patient care
  
• Key points added after each major section that indicate the evidence available for that topic and the quality of that evidence
  
• Chapters on analgesic drugs and techniques have been extensively revised and updated
  
• New chapters have been added on post-surgical pain syndromes and acute neuropathic pain, and analgesia in specific non-surgical states as well as for some of the more complex cases including acute-on-chronic pain, acute cancer pain or acute pain from a multitude of medical conditions

Stephan Schug is a medical graduate from the University of Cologne in Germany. At this University he also completed his MD by thesis in clinical pharmacology and his specialist training in anaesthesia, intensive care and pain medicine. After working for the University of Cologne as a Clinical Lecturer and Co-Director of its Cancer Pain Management Center, he moved to Auckland, New Zealand in 1989.

In Auckland, he worked initially for Auckland Hospital as a Temporary Acting Specialist in Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine, before joining the Pharmacology Department of the University of Auckland as a Senior Lecturer and Head of its Section of Anaesthetics in 1991. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994 and became full Professor and the first Chair of Anaesthesiology of the University of Auckland in 2000. Throughout his 12 years in Auckland, Stephan Schug had a clinical role as a staff specialist in anaesthesia and pain medicine at Auckland Hospital and the inaugural director of its pain service.

When Stephan Schug moved to Perth in 2001, he maintained his linkage to the University of Auckland as an Honorary Professor of Anaesthesiology, while taking up his new role as Associate Professor, then Professor in the Pharmacology Unit of the School of Medicine and Pharmacology of the University of Western Australia. In 2006, he succeeded Professor Teik Oh, the Inaugural Chair of Anaesthesia at UWA, who retired. Stephan Schug's clinical role is Director of Pain.