Janis Zinkus, Dalia Urbanaitė, Arūnas Gelmanas, Ramūnas Tamošiūnas, Arūnas Vertelis, Andrius Macas

Abstract

Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is one of the most frequently performed major orthopaedic operations causing postoperative pain, which may influence quality of life. Therefore controlling the pain after these operations is a real challenge to medical staff in the whole world. Generally, multimodal analgesia is applied. However, there is still no gold standard for pain control after TKA. Our aim was to find out whether postoperative acute pain control method influences patients quality of life and the occurrence of chronic pain after TKA. The perspective study was performed. Fifty four patients who underwent TKA were included. Patients were randomized into two groups: first group (continuous femoral nerve block) and second group (continuous intraarticular block). The knee function and chronic pain influence to quality of life were evaluated by visual-analog scale, Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score, Geriatric Depression Scale: short form. The results showed, postoperative pain control method had no influence to the occurrence of chronic pain. However, depression could cause chronic postoperative pain. The knee function recovery during the first month after TKA was faster in the second group. Despite the depression, the quality of life improved in both groups.

Keyword(s): postoperative pain; continuous femoral nerve block; continuous intraarticular block; total knee arthroplasty; chronic pain; quality of life.
DOI: 10.5200/sm-hs.2016.031
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