Perioperative pain management at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery of the Vienna Medical School

Abstract

Surgical treatment in the skeleton region and its adjacent tissue causes severe pain, demonstrated by the high demand of anaesthetics in the early postoperative phase. In order to offer adequate and individually adapted pain management, the orthopaedic department is working closely with the departments of anaesthesiology and intensive care medicine of the Vienna Medical University at the Vienna's General Hospital. The aim of this cooperation is to start postoperative rehabilitation early, to increase postoperative quality of life and to reduce the length of hospital stay. The surgical spectrum of the orthopaedic department consists of general orthopaedic, paediatric-orthopaedic-, sport- and rheuma-orthopaedic, tumour and spine interventions. The purpose of this review is to describe the cooperation between orthopaedic surgeons and anaesthetists at the Vienna Medical University.