New pain management approaches prove more effective than traditional methods in pain control while minimizing medicinal side effects post-total knee replacement procedures, according to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.
The new strategies utilize a combination of medications, including multimodal oral opioid and nonopioid medications during both preoperative and postoperative phases, regional anesthesia with preoperative nerve blocks administered by the anesthesiologist and intraoperative pain injections into the interior of the knee performed by the orthopedic surgeon. The study found these tactics led to lower patient pain severity in the first few days after surgery when compared to more traditional methods. Also, this new procedure lowers the occurrence of adverse events commonly related to conventional pain control protocols.
Perhaps most importantly, the study showed these new methods can lower the need of narcotics to mitigate post-op pain, limiting side effects and improving patient satisfaction, which in turn encourages patients to take active roles in their follow-up care.