Abstract
Objective: Pain is one of the main complaints in the emergency department (ED) and becomes a challenge because it is specific and individual, inflicted or not by a tissue injury. Thus, the importance of describing the multimodal treatment of adult patients with acute pain in the emergency is highlighted. Bibliographic review: Management in multimodal therapy aims at combining different pharmacological classes, or non-pharmacological treatments, which are not very viable in ED. As for the drugs used, there are the local anesthetics, Non-Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drugs (NSAID) and opioids that are the traditional ones, while the anticonvulsants, alpha 2 adrenergic agonists and N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) are the non-traditional ones. Non-traditional medications are used as adjuvants to opioids or potential substitutes, which aim precisely at adapting the patient's analgesia by decreasing opioid doses and its side effects. However, treatment for analgesia in ED is a conflicting point in terms of its dosage and adverse effects. Final considerations: That pain treatment is always individualized, but in a broad perspective as multimodal therapies are good choices in the treatment of acute pain, mainly in reducing the use of opioids. However, a greater number of studies is still necessary for the management to be better understood.