Abstract
A fast-growing segment of society are individuals over 65 years of age, and these older people typically have surgery more frequently than younger age-group populations. Inadequate pain control in the perioperative period can often be associated with well-documented adverse outcomes, so safe/effective anesthesia/analgesia remains essential in older patients. However, perioperative pain management in geriatric patients is often complicated by a host of variables such as disease–drug and drug–drug interactions, age- and disease-changes of physiology and anatomy, cognitive dysfunction, potential for negative consequences of acute trauma, and lack of evidence-based and/or procedure-specific regional anesthesia/analgesia options for older patients. Therefore, the concept of “start low and go slow” should be adopted, and diligence practiced when planning anesthetic strategies in this patient population.
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Halaszynski, T. (2023). Must-Known Special Considerations for Acute Pain Management in Geriatric Patient Population. In: Li, J., Jiang, W., Vadivelu, N. (eds) First Aid Perioperative Ultrasound. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21291-8_36
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