Disbudding and castration are two routine interventions in cattle practice. Both can cause severe pain and cause poor welfare. Through plasma cortisol levels and behaviour evaluation we measured pain caused by different disbudding and castration methods. We also studied the efficacy of several anaesthesia and analgesia protocols. The main conclusions are: - Cortisol together with behaviour assessment is very useful in detecting calves in pain. - Certain behaviours are only shown by very young calves. - Vocalization should not be used as a sign of pain in calves. - Scoop disbudding causes long term pain and local anaesthesia is not efficient. - Hot-iron disbudding causes severe pain during the procedure but does not differ from paste disbudding in the next hours. Local anaesthesia plus analgesia does reduce pain cause by these methods. - Xylazine causes an increase in cortisol even if pain is not induced. - Pain caused by clamp-castration lasts for at least 48 hours and is only controlled by long acting analgesics. - Surgical castration causes intense pain but shorter if two incisions are made instead of just one.

Nowadays, pain is an ever-present theme in veterinary practice. The number of available tools to fight painful stimuli has increased and practicians are more accurate in recognizing pain in their patients. However, much is still to be discovered and full drug potential hasn’t yet been achieved. The present study was meant to test the efficacy of the use of ropivacaine as a mean to control post-operative pain, by subcutaneous administration over the incision line, in elective ovariohysterectomies in female dogs. Glasgow’s Composite Measure Pain Scale was used as pain assessment tool. Pain assessment began thirty minutes post-extubation and was repeated hourly, up until 6 hours post-local block (limit of ropivacaine’s action). In this study, 14 dogs were received at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of the Veterinary Medicine Faculty of the University of Lisbon (HEFMV-ULisbon) for elective ovariohysterectomy. They were randomly distributed into two groups – Ropivacaine Group (RG) and Saline Group (SG). The observer was blinded to the distribution during the study period. RG was submitted to a subcutaneous infiltration of 1 mg/kg of ropivacaine, while SG patients were subject to a saline infiltration – volume calculation as per ropivacaine’s dose and concentration. During the procedure, heart and respiratory rate were monitored, with special attention to 5 crucial time-points. Post-operatively, rescue analgesia (carprofen 4 mg/kg + buprenorphine 0,015 mg/kg) were given to either patients whose score was 5 or greater in pain assessment or after 6 hours had passed, whichever came first. After the administration of rescue analgesia, the study was ended for that patient. Statistical analysis was done with R v2.1.2. There were no statistical differences between groups in age, weight, duration of procedure and duration of anesthesia (p = 0.743, p = 0.318, p = 0.796 and p = 0.337, respectively). Comparison between groups wasn’t statistically significant in heart and respiratory rate in the 5 chosen time-points (p = 0.990 e p = 0.529, respectively) nor in pain scores (p = 0.638). In conclusion, anesthesia with methadone, acepromazine, propofol and isoflurane provided reliable analgesia during and after the procedure, since no supplemental analgesics were needed in the control group. The pre-incisional administration of 1 mg/kg SC ropivacaine did not prove effective in lowering post-op pain scores.

Entre os traumas, os que atingem o pescoço e o ombro são considerados críticos, pois causam tração/ estiramento, levando a lesões do plexo braquial, cuja estrutura nervosa é formada nos segmentos medulares C5, C6, C7, C8 e T1. Traumas de plexo braquial provocam disfunção por lesão neurológica e pela dor no membro afetado. Esse tipo de dor perdura e produz sofrimento físico e psicológico, interferindo na vida cotidiana, social e econômica. Os instrumentos existentes para avaliação de dor não atendem a especificidade da braquialgia para avaliação mais acurada, ou seja, a extensão da dor, dentro de um trajeto plexular. Portanto, tornou-se necessária a elaboração e validação de um instrumento imagético para avaliação da dor em adultos com plexopatia braquial que seja de fácil e rápida aplicação, e que, sobretudo, caracterize a dor em relação à intensidade, à localização e à extensão, dentro de um trajeto plexular. O estudo foi desenvolvido em etapas: construção de uma escala de cores em uma população em geral (n:405) para mensurar a intensidade de dor; com o seguinte resultado: amarela para representar dor leve, alaranjada para dor moderada, vermelha para dor forte e preta para pior dor imaginável. Construção e validação clínica de um instrumento imagético para a localização e mensuração da intensidade da dor. Identificou-se o perfil demográfico e epidemiológico dos pacientes que participaram da validação clínica do instrumento. Houve predomínio de adultos jovens, do sexo masculino, que não completaram o ensino fundamental, com atividades braçais e que sofreram acidentes motociclísticos. A escala de cores foi validada junto aos pacientes com um índice de concordância de 98,9% entre eles. Para validar a localização da dor no diagrama corporal, o instrumento foi aplicado em 35 pacientes e a cirurgia foi escolhida como critério externo. Na validação obteve-se um índice de especificidade alto para cada tronco, baixo quando a lesão era em todos os troncos e índice de sensibilidade baixo para cada tronco e alto quando a lesão era em todos os troncos. Apresenta-se, como resultado do estudo, uma escala de cores para mensurar a intensidade de dor em geral e um instrumento imagético para localização e mensuração da dor em pacientes com plexopatia braquial.

Purpose: Pain intensity, as intensities of other subjective experiences is challenging to measure. The subjective nature of pain assessment and the variability in how patients are understanding and using pain scales are negatively affecting patient-health care provider communication and reducing the essay sensitivity of pain related studies. Little is known about the ability of patients to accurately report pain, and its possible relations with the ability to accurately report other bodily sensations. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between the ability to accurately report pain and the ability to accurately report other sensations. Participants and methods: Healthy volunteers enrolled from local universities underwent the FAST procedure, to assess pain reporting accuracy, a taste task, to assess tastes (sweet and salty solutions) intensity reporting accuracy, and the heartbeat perception task, an interoceptive task aimed to assess how accurate subjects are in monitoring and reporting their own heartbeat. In addition, all subjects completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Spearman’s correlations were used to assess relations between the accuracy tasks (FAST and taste) and interoception measures (heartbeat task and MAIA), as well associations with pain-related psychological questionnaires (PSS and HADS). Results: Ability to accurately report the sensations of different modalities were independent of each other (P>0.05 for all outcome measures). Positive correlations were found within modality, between reporting accuracy of salt and sweet solutions (Spearman’s r=0.477, P<0.001). No correlations were found between the psychological and accuracy measures. Conclusion: Pain reporting accuracy is not related to interoceptive awareness of other modalities. Further research is ongoing to investigate the clinical relevance of pain reporting accuracy.