Aspiration and Injection Therapy in Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Disorders [antikvár]

Preface The most common complaint in musculoskeletal disorders is pain—the symptom for which the patient most frequently seeks medical attention. It serves as the physician's chief guide in evaluating response. When pain continues unabated in the locomotor system, it often dominates the clinical picture and sometimes assumes the proportions of a disease in the patient's mind. Therefore, evaluation of pain and its effective relief take on great importance in many disorders. In arthritis and related conditions where pain is a chief symptom, acute or unresponsive to the usual measures, special methods of management become necessary. Musculoskeletal pain associated with inflammation may be part of a complex of symptoms reflecting a systemic disorder. However, pain may arise from a localized lesion and resist the usual generál or local measures. Sound diagnostic examination must be a primary consideration. Control of pain and/or suppression of inflammatory response may merely be an adjunct to a comprehensive management program. Fortunately, in many patients local injections at the source of pain or tissue level frequently give prolonged relief or abolish the symptoms. In the course of many years teaching postgraduate courses in rheu-matologic disorders and the problems of musculoskeletal pain, it has become obvious that two major considerations need emphasis: due recog-nition of the significant role of pain in the clinical picture and the application of an appropriate comprehensive treatment régimén. This handbook is a readily available compilation of indications and techniques in which unnecessary discussion has been avoided. It should prove of great value to various clinicians desirous of increasing their resources and skills for the totál care of painful musculoskeletal disorders—family physicians, internists, rheumatologists, physiatrists, neur-ologists, orthopedists, and pediatricians. This volume describes local measures which we have found useful in daily clinical practice. With few exceptions, these procedures are widely used and generally accepted, but are sometimes practiced casually and often timidly because the techniques have not been taught or are vü