“State” refers to a mode or condition of being. Anesthesia and sleep are examples. As state-based (rather than organ-based) medical specialities, the considerations of anesthesiology and sleep medicine are broad, encompassing all organ systems. While there is much other common ground between them, some of the most important concerns shared by the two specialties relate to a third state – the state of pain. The perioperative period provides a context in which these concerns are paramount, as adequate analgesia, restorative sleep and uncompromised ventilation are basic postoperative aims which must be carefully addressed to resolve potential conflicts between them. These issues provide themes for the upcoming annual meeting of the Society of Anesthesia and Sleep Medicine (SASM) in San Francisco on October 11 and 12, 2013.
Perioperative pain disturbs sleep and ventilation. Controlling it requires strategies that either circumvent the need for opioids and other sedating drugs or, where they...
