ED Regional Anesthesia Practice and the Basics on Local Anesthesia Toxicity

In the United States and the United Kingdom, where the author resides, many Emergency Departments utilize nerve blocks for fractures waiting to be seen by orthopedic surgery. As emergency nurses, be it advance practice nurse or staff nurse, it is our professional responsibility to be aware of emergencies that can result from these nerve blocks, namely local anesthetic toxicity (LAT). In the United Kingdom, there are protocols and guidelines for the treatment of this adverse event, which are shared in this article as a knowledge base for identifying and treating LAT. This paper also discusses the similarities in symptoms of LAT and anaphylaxis.