Pain Management for Total Hip Arthroplasty

Total hip arthroplasty (THA) has been shown to improve long-term quality of life, although the immediate postoperative period can be associated with intense postoperative pain that hampers rehabilitation. Effective postoperative analgesia is paramount in the recovery period. The understanding and collaboration of the orthopaedic surgeon and the pain-management physicians will improve the perioperative outcome of THA. Appropriate pain management can reduce the associated total direct medical costs for lower extremity joint replacement surgeries by reducing hospital stays and the services needed during hospitalization. Factors contributing to the shorter lengths of stay include homogenous entities such as regular staff and continuity of nursing care, the use of timely and up-to-date information including expectations on a short stay, functional discharge criteria, early mobilization, and the use of a multimodal analgesia approach centered on opioid sparing. (Journal of Surgical Orthopaedic Advances 23(1):13–21, 2014)

Key words: pain, total knee arthroplasty