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Ensuring that patient-controlled anaesthesia is safe
Abstract
appropriate monitoring and record-keeping, staff training for PCA competency, preoperative patient education and oxygen administration when appropriate, e.g. sleeping patients. Initial postoperative analgesia should be established personally by the attending practitioner who should titrate small doses of opioid to the desired effect. It is emphasised that counting breathing rates is an unreliable index of OIVI is that the quality of breathing should be assessed, and that sedation occurs before OIVI, is clinically obvious. Therefore, monitoring and recording a sedation score at regular intervals is essential. During opioid administration, sedation should be regarded as the “sixth vital sign”.