Pain may be inevitable; inadequate management is not.
Assessing and managing pain in the critically ill patient is challenging. Reproducible and clinically applicable pain measurement scales have yet to be validated and ubiquitously applied in the intensive care unit setting. Critical care clinicians, both physicians and nurses, should thoughtfully monitor their patient's pain level, periodically reassess their practice and critically evaluate the efficacy of pharmacological and nonpharmacological analgesic interventions.
Skrobik
Yoanna
Y
Hôpital Maisonneuve Rosemont, 5415 boulevard de l'Assomption, Montreal, Québec, Canada. skrobik@sympatico.ca
D000368:Aged; D016292:Procedural Sedation; D016638:Critical Illness; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D008297:Male; D009730:Nursing Assessment; D015588:Observer Variation; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000145:classification / Q000379:methods*