Regional Anesthesia in Neuroanesthesia Practice

Abstract

Regional anesthesia has been an undervalued entity in neuroanesthetic practice. However, in the past few years, owing to the development of more advanced techniques, drugs and the prolific use of ultrasound guidance, the unrecognised potential of these modalities have been highlighted. These techniques confer the advantages of reduced requirements for local anesthetics, improved hemodynamic stability in the intraoperative period, better pain score postoperatively and reduced analgesic requirements in the postoperative period. Reduced analgesic requirement translates into lesser side effects associated with analgesic use. Furthermore, the transition from the traditional blind landmark-based techniques to the ultrasound guidance has increased the reliability and the safety profile. In this review, we highlight the commonly practised blocks in the neuroanesthesiologist's armamentarium and describe their characteristics, along with their individual particularities.