Managing pain effectively is one of the most important tasks that clinical veterinarians perform on a daily basis. This requires accurate assessing and grading of perioperative or posttraumatic pain followed by effective treatment. Commonly, veterinarians rely on the interpretation of physiological indices such as heart and respiratory rates, and, in case of musculoskeletal pain, on lameness evaluation. However, accurate assessment of pain in horses is complicated, not only because there are as many types of pain as there are responses to injuries, but also because criteria used to assess pain are often confounded by other factors. More recent studies suggest that subjective and objective assessment of species-specific pain behaviors should become an integral part of pain evaluation also in the horse, and that physiological and behavioral data combined are more useful than physiological measures alone to assess pain and the response to treatment in an individual animal. Pain scoring systems have recently been adapted to the horse and may prove useful in judging progress and response to treatment during the perioperative period. Effective pain therapy is best accomplished by applying a multi-modal or balanced analgesia concept that involves the combination of drugs with different pharmacological mechanisms of action and different target sites within the nociceptive system. Balanced analgesia may also include complementary modalities of pain treatment, such as acupuncture or chiropractic manipulations, especially when dealing with conditions of chronic pain.

Pain: from diagnosis to effective treatment.

ZARUCCO, Laura
2007-01-01

Abstract

Managing pain effectively is one of the most important tasks that clinical veterinarians perform on a daily basis. This requires accurate assessing and grading of perioperative or posttraumatic pain followed by effective treatment. Commonly, veterinarians rely on the interpretation of physiological indices such as heart and respiratory rates, and, in case of musculoskeletal pain, on lameness evaluation. However, accurate assessment of pain in horses is complicated, not only because there are as many types of pain as there are responses to injuries, but also because criteria used to assess pain are often confounded by other factors. More recent studies suggest that subjective and objective assessment of species-specific pain behaviors should become an integral part of pain evaluation also in the horse, and that physiological and behavioral data combined are more useful than physiological measures alone to assess pain and the response to treatment in an individual animal. Pain scoring systems have recently been adapted to the horse and may prove useful in judging progress and response to treatment during the perioperative period. Effective pain therapy is best accomplished by applying a multi-modal or balanced analgesia concept that involves the combination of drugs with different pharmacological mechanisms of action and different target sites within the nociceptive system. Balanced analgesia may also include complementary modalities of pain treatment, such as acupuncture or chiropractic manipulations, especially when dealing with conditions of chronic pain.
2007
6: 2
126
134
http://www.clinicalequine.com/issues
Diagnosing and scoring of pain; pain behaviors; balanced analgesia; multi-modal analgesia; complementary modalities of pain therapy; horse
Driessen B; Zarucco L.
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Driessen et al.CTEP_2007.pdf

Accesso riservato

Tipo di file: PDF EDITORIALE
Dimensione 610.53 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
610.53 kB Adobe PDF   Visualizza/Apri   Richiedi una copia

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/53535
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 12
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact