This well-written and well-organized book is a much needed 'middle ground' resource between oversimplified introductions to pain management and a thick textbook."—Clinical Nurse Specialist The provides an excellent overview of the process of pain management for adult patients in any setting."—Critical Care Nurse This book provides much-needed guidelines that are presented in an easy-to-use, systematic format for quick access to core concepts on acute pain management. It is designed to help busy practitioners accurately assess pain in a variety of patient populations, and select patient-appropriate medications and interventions to achieve optimal pain management for adult patients. Intended for use in primary care, internal medicine, and acute- and long-term care settings, this book covers the topics of acute pain assessment, both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatment options, current information from national guidelines, along with regional anesthesia techniques, patient-controlled analgesia, and epidural pain management. • Offers important new perspective on combination use of pain scales to accurately predict individual pain management needs for more customized and effective management • Delivers information on how to treat acute pain in hospitalized patients who also suffer from chronic pain and substance abuse • Offers new information on opioid polymorphisms and their surprising effect on pain medication effectiveness • Includes a special chapter on managing pain in difficult-to-treat patient populations This is an essential reference for primary care providers in clinics, hospitals, specialty care, and critical care to assess pain in general populations and provide tips for performing pain assessment on patients with acute pain.