Managing pain in sleep surgery patients

Managing pain in sleep surgery patients Objectives:Sleep surgery patients typically experience significant post-operative pain, with subsequent impact on quality of life. There is uncertainty around optimal peri-operative analgesia strategies for these patients, with resultant variation in practices. This paper presents a literature review and our novel practice on analgesia strategies for patients undergoing sleep surgery. tMethod:A literature search was performed using the Medline and Embase databases. An article was included if it discussed analgesia strategies for patients undergoing sleep surgery. We compared pain outcomes between two patient groups. 1) Patients using our previous pain management protocol. 2) Patients using our novel pain management protocol. Results:A total of 256 abstracts were reviewed and 23 full text articles were included. Four peri-operative analgesia strategies were identified. Our novel pain management protocol resulted in significant reduction in pain scores. Conclusions: This paper provides an evidence-based overview of strategies to manage post-operative pain following sleep surgery.