title: Regional analgesia in intensive care.
abstract: JUSTIFICATIONS AND OBJECTIVES: regional analgesia plays an important role in multimodal pain management in critically ill patients, minimizing patient discomfort and reducing the associated physiological and psychological stress. Lower doses of systemic opioids reduce some of its side effects, such as withdrawal syndrome, possible psychological changes, and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Despite these benefits, its use is controversial, as patients in intensive care units often have contraindications, such as coagulopathy, hemodynamic instability, and difficulty in neurological assessment and implementation of regional technique.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  The authors present a review of regional analgesia in intensive care, focusing on the main advantages and limitations of its use in critically ill patients, and describe the most commonly used regional techniques and its applicability.
authors.affiliation: Anesthesiology Department, Hospital de São João, Entidade Pública Empresarial, Porto, Portugal. luisa_ferraz@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Luísa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guedes
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Rebelo
authors.forename: Raquel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.forename: Aida
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Neves
mesh_terms: D000698:Analgesia / Q000379:methods*; D015360:Analgesia, Epidural / Q000009:adverse effects; D003422:Critical Care / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D059408:Pain Management / Q000379:methods*