Updated Acute Pain Management Guidelines Released
By Simon French BAppSc(Chiro), MPH.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia has recently endorsed the 2nd edition of the publication “Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence”. This document was put together by the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and Faculty of Pain Medicine. The guidelines were launched at the World Pain Congress in Sydney in August 2005.

This publication summarises the evidence currently available to assist health professionals in the management of acute pain. Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence covers a wide range of clinical topics. The aim of the report is to combine the best available evidence for acute pain management with current clinical and expert practice and accordingly summarises the substantial amount of evidence currently available for the management of acute pain in a concise and easily readable form to assist the practising clinician.

Although the document is focussed primarily on pharmaceutical pain management, it has a lot of background information about pain and discussion of evidence that will be of great value to the practising chiropractor and osteopath.

The full document can be downloaded from the NHMRC website: www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/cp104syn.htm