Adductor Canal Versus Femoral Nerve Block for Analgesia Post Total Knee Arthroscopy
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2014-12-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Total knee arthroplasty or replacement (TKA) is a surgery performed for osteoarthritis of the
knee which is increasingly performed as the population ages. It is a painful surgery and one
of the methods to reduce post-operative pain is performing a regional anaesthesia technique.
The current practice is to perform a femoral nerve block (FNB) which blocks the nerves
supplying the knee joint and the thigh muscles (quadriceps). This provides effective
analgesia. However, it also results in weakness of the quadriceps and may result in falls
post-operatively.
Adductor canal block (ACB) is a new, alternative regional anaesthesia technique which is
hypothesised to provide as effective analgesia, with less quadriceps weakness compared to
FNB, hence potentially reducing the risk of falls post-operatively.
Investigators aim to study if the analgesia provided by ACB is as good as FNB while
preserving quadriceps strength.