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Background: To provide recommendations on risk mitigation, diagnosis and treatment of infectious complications associated with the practice of regional anesthesia, acute and chronic pain management., Methods: Following board approval, in 2020 the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine (ASRA Pain Medicine) commissioned evidence-based guidelines for best practices for infection control. More than 80 research questions were developed and literature searches undertaken by assigned working groups comprising four to five members. Modified US Preventive Services Task Force criteria were used to determine levels of evidence and certainty. Using a modified Delphi method, >50% agreement was needed to accept a recommendation for author review, and >75% agreement for a recommendation to be accepted. The ASRA Pain Medicine Board of Directors reviewed and approved the final guidelines., Results: After documenting the incidence and infectious complications associated with regional anesthesia and interventional pain procedures including implanted devices, we made recommendations regarding the role of the anesthesiologist and pain physician in infection control, preoperative patient risk factors and management, sterile technique, equipment use and maintenance, healthcare setting (office, hospital, operating room), surgical technique, postoperative risk reduction, and infection symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment. Consensus recommendations were based on risks associated with different settings and procedures, and keeping in mind each patient's unique characteristics., Conclusions: The recommendations are intended to be multidisciplinary guidelines for clinical care and clinical decision-making in the regional anesthesia and chronic interventional pain practice. The issues addressed are constantly evolving, therefore, consistent updating will be required., Competing Interests: Competing interests: HTB, TLD, RLJ, HK, SLK, SN, ACSP, ES, and JVZ have no competing interests. KC: existing relationship with BD via contract for providing educational content on sepsis as a lecturer and participating in a sepsis advisory committee meeting. JSG: shareholder in startup company at UK Intralink sine, which was purchased by Spinal Simplicity but has no product on the market. MH: consults for Abbott and Medtronic. BH: consultant for Nevro and Boston Scientific. CH: principal investigator for research grant paid to institution from Nevro for investigator-initiated research study to support research coordinator efforts. Research agreement with Abbott, paid to institution (I am not the principal investigator but am involved with the 51 research.). SH: consultant/advisor for B. Baun and Shiratronics. RL: has received research funding from Sage Medical, B. Braun, Draeger, Surfacide, and Kenall, has one or more patents pending, and is a partner of RDB Bioinformatics, the company that owns OR PathTrac. He receives no funds personally from his involvement in RDB. He has spoken at educational meetings sponsored by Kenall and B. Braun. AJRM: consulting fees from Intelligent Ultrasound; honorarium for teaching from GE Healthcare. AN: Saol Therapeutics–research funds provided to my institution for research that I perform. SN: consults for Shiratronics and is a member of the Boards of Directors for the ASRA Pain Medicine and American Interventional Headache Society (AIHS). AP: paid honoraria from GE Healthcare for teaching, consultancy for Pacira Pharmaceuticals. JP: grant support from Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Abbott, NIH 2R01CA166379, NIH R01EB030324, and NIH U44NS115111. Medical advisor for Aim Medical Robotics and has stock equity. DAP: has consulted for Avanos, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, Nevro, and SI Bone. Pain Diagnostics and Interventional Care has received research support from Avanos, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, Nevro, Stimgenics, and Abbott. DAP serves on the Board of ASRA Pain Medicine. RVS: consultation fees from CIVCO., (© American Society of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine 2025. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ Group.)

Background: Inconsistent nomenclature and anatomical descriptions of regional anesthetic techniques hinder scientific communication and engender confusion; this in turn has implications for research, education and clinical implementation of regional anesthesia. Having produced standardized nomenclature for abdominal wall, paraspinal and chest wall regional anesthetic techniques, we aimed to similarly do so for upper and lower limb peripheral nerve blocks., Methods: We performed a three-round Delphi international consensus study to generate standardized names and anatomical descriptions of upper and lower limb regional anesthetic techniques. A long list of names and anatomical description of blocks of upper and lower extremities was produced by the members of the steering committee. Subsequently, two rounds of anonymized voting and commenting were followed by a third virtual round table to secure consensus for items that remained outstanding after the first and second rounds. As with previous methodology, strong consensus was defined as ≥75% agreement and weak consensus as 50%-74% agreement., Results: A total of 94, 91 and 65 collaborators participated in the first, second and third rounds, respectively. We achieved strong consensus for 38 names and 33 anatomical descriptions, and weak consensus for five anatomical descriptions. We agreed on a template for naming peripheral nerve blocks based on the name of the nerve and the anatomical location of the blockade and identified several areas for future research., Conclusions: We achieved consensus on nomenclature and anatomical descriptions of regional anesthetic techniques for upper and lower limb nerve blocks, and recommend using this framework in clinical and academic practice. This should improve research, teaching and learning of regional anesthesia to eventually improve patient care., Competing Interests: Competing interests: EA: grants from Swiss Academy for Anesthesia Research, Bbraun, Swiss National Science Foundation. Honoraria from Bbraun and Sintetica. JG: consulting fees from Pacira Biosciences and Pajunk Medical. AP: honoraria from FuijiFilm Sonosite. MW: advisory Board for Sintetica, Honoraria from Wisonic and Medovate. SA: Advisory Panel for DATAR innovations. JA: moderator of the Working Group Regional Anaesthesia Switzerland, Honoraria from Medtronic and Sintetica. AMRA: honoraria form AllerganSébastien Bloc—Consulting fees from BBraun—GE Medical Systems—Pajunk—Pfizer SAS. JB: Consulting fees from Intelligent Ultrasound. BC: jonoraria from Bbraun and Rivanna, Consulting from Stryker and Flat Medical, Research funding from Pacira, Share Options from Flat Medical. AC: speaking honoraria from GE Healthcare, royalties from textbook Oxford University Press. SC: consulting fees from MSD, Bbraun Medical, Wisonic, research grants from BARA (Belgian association of Regional anesthesia), ESRA and BeSARP (Belgian anesthesia society) HE-Consulting/Advisory Board Neuronoff, SPR, GateScience, NeuronoffBenjamin Fox—Speaking fees from Medovate and Sintetica. SG: consulting and speaking fees from MSD Switzerland. PH: royalties from Bestek Products. NH: Honoraria from Butterfly Network. RMGH- Honoraria from GE Healthcare. MH: consulting fees from Pacira Biosciences, Honoraria from Parcira Biosciences and Pajunk Medical. BMI: research funding to institution from SPR Therapeutics, Infutronix, Epimed International. AM: Consultant fees from Intelligent Ultrasound. CM: consultant fees from Masimo Corporation. SGM: Owner SGM Consulting, Partner Parvizi Surgical Innovations, Patent for Multicatheter infusion system. AN: Research support from SPR Therapeutics. SLO: Royalties from book Wolters-Kluwer. APawa: Honoraria from GE Healthcare, Consulting fees from Pacira Biosciences. PP: equipment support from Sonosiite Fujifilm Canada. MPS: Medovate speaking but no honoraria paid. SKS- Cofounder of Gate Science (developing a catheter for performing nerve blocks) JS: consulting fees from Sintetica. RT: Consulting fees from Clarius Mobile Health. VU: Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Anesthesia and Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine journals. TV: honoraria from CSL Behring, Pajunk., (© American Society of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine 2024. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

The US Health and Human Services Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force initiated a public-private partnership which led to the publication of its report in 2019. The report emphasized the need for individualized, multimodal, and multidisciplinary approaches to pain management that decrease the over-reliance on opioids, increase access to care, and promote widespread education on pain and substance use disorders. The Task Force specifically called on specialty organizations to work together to develop evidence-based guidelines. In response to this report's recommendations, a consortium of 14 professional healthcare societies committed to a 2-year project to advance pain management for the surgical patient and improve opioid safety. The modified Delphi process included two rounds of electronic voting and culminated in a live virtual event in February 2021, during which seven common guiding principles were established for acute perioperative pain management. These principles should help to inform local action and future development of clinical practice recommendations., Competing Interests: Competing interests: JMS declares salary support from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan; research funding from Neuros Medical (Willoughby, OH, USA), Setpoint Medical (Valencia, CA, USA), and Medtronic (Dublin, Ireland; legal consulting for Yates, McLamb and Weyher, LLP (Raleigh, NC, USA). KKKH is a consultant for True Digital Surgery (Goleta, CA, USA). GS is an advisory board member for Dorsal Health (New York, NY, USA) and consultant for Pacira Biosciences (Parsippany-Troy Hills, NJ, USA). SS is a consultant for Masimo (Irvine, CA, USA), Allergan (Dublin, Ireland), and SPR Therapeutics (Cleveland, OH, USA). These companies had absolutely no input into any aspect of the project design, Pain Summit, or manuscript preparation. None of the other authors has any financial interests to declare., (© American Society of Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine 2022. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background and Objectives: Despite widespread use of ultrasound in regional anesthesia, little understanding of the psychomotor and visuospatial skills required to achieve and maintain procedural proficiency exists. Despite its procedural nature, anesthesiology lags behind other fields in assessing technical aptitude among practitioners and trainees. The goals of this study were to measure relevant visuospatial and psychomotor aptitudes of anesthesia residents-in-training and to evaluate the relationship between these skill sets and the performance of ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia., Methods: Forty residents from the Mayo Clinic Department of Anesthesiology were enrolled, and 39 (PGY-1 through PGY-4) voluntarily completed a demographic survey, 4 psychomotor and 4 visuospatial aptitude assessments, and an ultrasound-based performance assessment., Results: The Block Design Test, a subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligent Scale - III, correlated with ultrasound guided skill performance (correlation coefficient, 0.47; P < 0.002). By contrast, psychomotor aptitude assessments did not correlate with ultrasound task performance. Psychomotor skill performance was significantly reduced by indirect hand-eye coordination visual feedback (projected image) compared with direct hand-eye coordination (P < 0.001). A learning effect was observed between the first and second ultrasound skill task attempts and was independent of hand dominance., Discussion: This study reveals that visuospatial aptitude is a better predictor of ultrasound-based procedural performance than psychomotor ability. The type of real-time visual feedback (indirect versus direct) used for hand-eye coordination significantly impacts procedural performance and has implications for anesthesia and other procedural specialties. The learning effect noted during initial ultrasound skill trials suggests visuospatial assimilation and underscores the importance of early ultrasound instruction.