Pain and postoperative intensive care

This chapter discusses pain and postoperative intensive care and includes discussion on pain management in the intensive care unit (ICU; including the causes and incidence of pain in the ICU, adverse effects of pain, assessment of pain in the ICU, and methods of pain relief in the ICU) and intensive care for the high-risk surgical patient (throughout the whole process). The chapter also covers the acute surgical abdomen in the ICU (and the complications thereof) and the medical patient with surgical problems (such as ischaemia of the bowel, acalculous cholecystitis, gallstone ileus, intra-abdominal hypertension, and soft-tissue infections).