Emergency Medicine Exam 1 Practice 2026 – All-in-One Guide to Master Your Emergency Medicine Certification!

Injection of an anesthetic into and around a nerve or group of nerves is called a peripheral nerve block. This approach places local anesthetic near the nerve so it can block the nerve’s ability to conduct pain signals, yielding targeted anesthesia to the region served by that nerve. It’s a form of regional anesthesia used for limb procedures, often guided by ultrasound or nerve stimulation to improve accuracy.

This differs from an epidural, which involves injecting into the epidural space around the spinal cord and can affect multiple nerve roots more diffusely. Intraosseous injection is into the bone marrow cavity, not near nerves. An intravenous regional block uses the limb’s venous system with a tourniquet to trap anesthetic in the limb, without targeting a specific nerve bundle. Peripheral nerve blocks are valued for focused pain control with less systemic exposure, but carry risks such as nerve injury, infection, hematoma, or local anesthetic toxicity if not performed carefully.