Fundamentals of Anaesthesia and Acute Medicine – serie

This book deals with how changes in organ function can affect the way the body handles drugs. Most books on this subject deal with how drug treatments affect organ function. This book approaches it from the other way round.The information in this book will allow safer prescribing of drugs to critically ill patients. This is a clinical governance issue. Quality of care and quality of drug prescribing is vital to patient safety. With clinical governance and since the Audit Commission report on Intensive Care in the UK, this is even more spotlighted.

This book discusses the provision of anaesthesia for day case patients from the preoperative period until discharge and patient follow-up. Provides information on patient selection, management of pain and sickness, the recovery process and problems which may occur after surgery. All forms of anaesthesia are covered, including local anaesthesia and nerve blocks, general anaesthesia (with inhaled and injected drugs) and the use of sedatives to supplement local anaesthesia. The special needs of the child are also addressed.

This book presents the most important aspects of modern clinical use of local anaesthetic drugs and of local and regional anaesthetic techniques. Special attention is paid to safety, i.e., toxicity features which are covered in sufficient detail for the practitioner to use these techniques safely.Controversies depending on technical differences in the applied techniques, as well as on differences in local anaesthetic solutions, are discussed, providing a useful overview of the specialty worldwide.