The Department was established in 1947 and is currently divided into three major Departmentsâthe Department of the Army, Navy and Air Forceâand has a military staff of 1,418,542 (553,044 US Army; 329,304 US Navy; 202,786 US Marine Corps; 333,408 US Air Force). The DoD is headed by the Secretary of Defense.
PREEMPTIVE analgesia is an antinociceptive treatment that prevents establishment of altered processing of afferent input, which amplifies postoperative pain. The concept of preemptive analgesia was formulated by Crile at the beginning of the previous century on the basis of clinical observations.
A patient controlled analgesia (PCA) is a generic term which refers to a method allowing a. person in pain to deliver their own pain relief. The PCA is used for the more continuous. control of moderate to severe pain, where oral or intermittent analgesia would be less. effective. The intravenous route is referred to as PCIA in this document, as opposed to the. epidural route, referred to as patient controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA).