Pain Management

Although the prevalence of dyspnea was at least as high as that of pain, the detection and treatment of moderate to severe dyspnea were more inconsistent than for pain among critically ill patients in the ICU, according to data published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

In 2017, the HHS declared a nationwide public health emergency regarding the opioid crisis. To prevent future opioid abuse, OrthoCarolina and the OrthoCarolina Research Institute have implemented the Carolinas Opioid Reduction Effort project, which includes the nation’s first comprehensive study designed to assess the efficacy of opioid-free pain management for patients.

Determining the best treatment for a corneal abrasion depends on many factors, such as the severity of the injury and the degree of pain the patient is experiencing. But practitioners also must take into consideration the location of the abrasion, symptoms the patient may be exhibiting and how the incident occurred. “You must consider whether it was simply a scratch or a shearing injury that actually tore the epithelium away from the underlying basement membrane,” said William D. Townsend, OD, in private group practice in Canyon, Texas. “Was it caused by a plant-type material where you have to worry about a fungal infection later?”