ANALGESICS IN EMERGENCY-MEDICINE

Analgesia is an important component of emergency medical practice because appropriate analgesia will decrease the patient's anxiety, enhance the patient's cooperation with diagnostic and therapeutic manoeuvres and tend to ameliorate the neuroendocrine response to injury. If appropriate personnel are available, analgesia provided to patients en route to the hospital will magnify its salutary effects. The physician caring for the emergency patient must consider the entire chain from nociception to pain sensation and emotional response to prescribe the appropriate analgesic regimen (Figure 2). © 1992 Baillière Tindall.