The Role of Regional Anesthesia in ICU Pain Management

Abstract

Purpose of review: The purpose of this review is to provide the most recent update and summary on the consideration, benefits and application of regional anesthesia in the ICU setting, as it pertains to the management of perioperative pain.

Recent findings: Regional anesthesia and analgesia have become ubiquitous in the perioperative setting, with numerous indications and benefits. As integral part of the multimodal analgesia approach, various regional blocks have been increasingly utilized in critically ill patients. We focus this review on various regional techniques employed for critically ill patients after cardiac, thoracic, and major abdominal surgery, including neuraxial and novel truncal blocks. Effective pain management in critically ill patients poses many challenges and is extremely important. Regional anesthesia, in combination with other analgesia modalities, while still under-utilized, can help reduce acute perioperative pain, stress response, opioid use and related side effects and expedite recovery and improve clinical outcomes.

Keywords: Abdominal Blocks; Acute Perioperative Pain; Chest Wall Block; ICU Pain; ICU Pain Management; Regional Anesthesia.