Non-pharmacological Adjuncts in the Perioperative Period

PainPain represents a significant burden for patients following surgery and can impact their short- and long-term outcomes. While pharmacotherapy is considered the primary modality associated with perioperative analgesic management, non-pharmacological adjuncts are gaining traction and assuming a substantial contributing role. These modalities are considered adjuncts as they may not be effective as the sole treatment for moderate-to-severe acute painAcute pain and are hence considered supplementary to the analgesicAnalgesics techniques described in earlier chapters. Many clinicians and patients prefer a combination of pharmacotherapy and non-pharmacologic methods to control post-operative pain. The practice of utilizing non-pharmacologic adjuncts is common in clinical practice. However, these treatments are scarcely translated into the literature and there remains little data describing their efficacy in the context of acute surgical pain.