PAIN MANAGEMENT IN PATIENTS OF RAPID RECOVERY (RR) PROGRAM IN TOTAL KNEE ARTHROPLASTY (TKA)

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is a surgery consisting on the artificial joint replacement, due to a traumatic injury or a degenerative process or arthrosis. This surgery causes an important pain to patients, and sometimes affects negatively on their recovery. The choice of the prostheses will depend on the anatomical features of the patient and the surgeon criterion. The concept of "rapid recovery surgery" was introduced in 1997 by Khelet and meant the beginning of the Fast Track model or the Rapid Recovery (RR) linked to an accelerated rehabilitation, an early discharge and the optimization of all the aspects of pre, intra and post-operative patient experience. Fast recovery is a surgical process which aims to achieve maximum autonomy of the patient through education, pain control and early mobilization. The key of the rapid recovery is to get the involvement of the patient thanks to the empowerment, which means a preoperative patient education that will help to reduce anxiety and it will make easier to engage in their own recovery. Furthermore the patient will take part of an effective post-operative physical therapy, using all the necessary tools to increase their ability to manage their own health problems. The empowerment of these patients is part of the Nursing Model in the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona (HCB), adopted by the Nursing Management in December of 2012. In Catalonia, until the start of the RR surgery, 14 132 interventions in 2008 where done by TKA conventional surgery, needing subsequent conventional hospitalization. This article describes the care and outcomes of nurse interventions, defined in the RR of TKA clinical way, which is focused on the pain's minimization and the impact on patients' mobilization. It was performed in a monographic unit from a tertiary-level hospital in Barcelona in 2013.