We’ve all encountered patients for whom taking a blood pressure or applying a tourniquet is excruciatingly painful. Pain sensitivity may explain these atypical responses. Pain sensitivity can be described as an individual’s underlying predisposition to pain and is highly variable between individuals, playing a significant role in the intensity and duration of pain and opioid use after surgery. Although validated methods of painsensitivity testing (or quantitative sensory testing [QST]) have existed for decades, they are only recently being employed in perioperative settings. In this session, the current evidence on pain sensitivity research in surgical populations will be presented, and participants will learn about various techniques to measure pain sensitivity. This session is recommended for CRNAs and SRNAs interested in advancing knowledge about pain phenotypes and how they may influence treatment response, and for CRNAs in acute or chronic pain management, where the inclusion of full pain sensitivity profiling can be incorporated into current practice to allow tailoring of treatment for individualized pain management.
Learning Outcome(s):
- Describe pain sensitivity and discuss the impact it has on anesthesia and surgical outcomes.
- List techniques used to measure pain sensitivity.
- Describe how pain sensitivity measures may be used to improve anesthesia practice.
This program has been prior approved by the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology for 1.0 Class A CE credits; Code Number 1044799; Expiration Date 2/20/2025. AANA designates this program as meeting the criteria for up to 0.5 CE Credits in pharmacology/therapeutics.