Ketamine: A Novel Approach with a Familiar Tool for Pain Management in Complex Cases

Join us for this amazing 4 hour CE that includes both lecture and demonstration!   Bring along your technical staff!

Ketamine  is a unique player in the field of pain management and anesthesia and is the focus of new attention for the treatment of chronic pain conditions in human medicine.  There is growing evidence for the use of intermittent ketamine infusions and injections  for  chronically painful conditions, including complex regional pain syndrome, chronic headaches, and chronic back pain in humans.  Ketamine acts as an NMDA receptor antagonist, as well as having an ability to alter brain and spinal cord neuroplasticity in patients  with central sensitization related to chronic pain.  Ketamine is showing efficacy in unexpected conditions proving there may be more to its underlying mechanisms of action yet to be fully understood. Ketamine is well known for its benefits in preventing pain  and central sensitization in the acute and perioperative pain setting, but has not been extensively studied in the context of veterinary chronic pain.  Because the parallels between chronic pain and central sensitization in humans and animals is strong, it  is promising to think that ketamine infusions could be used to address chronic pain issues for veterinary patients.

1 hour

- Review of pain physiology and complex pain states, like chaotic pain and neuropathic pain (with case examples)

- Review of neuroplasticity as it relates to pain and recovery from illness or injury

- Tools to help recognize chronic pain in veterinary patients and literature review in this growing area

1 hour

- Update on ketamine after review of mechanism of action and veterinary use

- Review of recent human and veterinary literature in regard to chronic pain

- Overview of cases at Red Sage

- Discuss results of a current study  

1 hour

- Interactive specific case discussions 

- Case selection and protocol development 

1 hour

- Review of CRI set up and running them in hospital

- Patient assessment

- SC pump use

- Demo on using and setting up the SC pump  

Breakfast and snacks will be served.