Pain management for the postoperative patient.

Studies have shown that patients often experience suboptimal analgesia in the postoperative period. In the past decade, a number of advances have been made to improve patient comfort after undergoing surgery. In addition to the obvious desirability of better pain control, adequate postoperative analgesia may decrease the incidence of cardiac and pulmonary complications. Opioid analgesics continue to be the main class of drugs used for postoperative analgesia. However, new methods and routes of administration, including patient-controlled analgesia and epidural and intrathecal drug administration, are currently being used. These modalities, when used appropriately, provide better analgesia, often with fewer side effects than when opiates are given by the traditional intramuscular route.