Physiotherapy and the impact of post-surgical pain

Postoperative pain is the most common acute pain. It should be managed not only for humane reasons to reduce patients’ suffering, but also as unrelieved pain impairs postoperative recovery and rehabilitation. Therefore good postoperative pain relief may reduce morbidity, postoperative complications, possibly even mortality, hospital stay and costs. Furthermore it may prevent transition of acute to chronic pain after surgery. There is now a large body of evidence supporting appropriate treatment of postoperative pain. This talk will present this evidence with a focus on multimodal approaches.
Ref: Schug SA, Palmer GM, Scott DA, Halliwell R, Trinca J; APM:SE Working Group of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and Faculty of Pain Medicine (2015), Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence (4th edition), ANZCA & FPM, Melbourne.

Presenter

Stephan Schug MD FANZCA FFPMANZCA EDPM

Stephan Schug is Professor and Chair of Anaesthesiology in the Department of Pharmacology, Pharmacy and Anaesthesiology of the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia and Director of Pain Medicine at Royal Perth Hospital, Australia. His principal research interests include the management of acute and chronic pain, cancer pain, regional anaesthesia, the pharmacology of local anaesthetics and analgesics and quality improvement in health care.

Professor Schug studied medicine at the University of Cologne, Germany, where he also obtained his MD in clinical pharmacology and subsequently specialised in anaesthesia and pain medicine. He has written over 80 research and 170 review papers, as well as abstracts, letters, and editorials, and has edited or co-authored several books, book chapters, and monographs. He is currently on editorial and review boards of several leading journals including Pain & Therapy, Annals of Palliative Medicine, Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology and CNS Drugs. Professor Schug is an active member of several pain and anaesthesia societies including Chair of the SIG Acute Pain of IASP and Chair of the SIG Acute Pain of ACE, and is a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and its Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPMANZCA), where he is a member of the Board of the Faculty.