Postoperative pain managements in children

Abstract

The practice of pediatric pain management has made a great progress in the last decade with the development and validation of pain assessment tools specific to pediatric patients. Adequate pediatric pain management has not been advanced as that of adult analgesia due to a lack of clinical knowledge, insufficient pediatric research and the fear of opioid side effects and addiction. Even pediatric anesthesiologists have believed the myths that neonates and infants do not feel severe pain compared to adults because of immatured development of nervous system. The recognition that untreated pain is a significant cause of morbidity and even mortality after surgical trauma advanced in pediatric pain management. Accurate assessment of pain in different age groups and the effective treatment of postoperative pain are constantly being refined. Systemic opioids in patient-controlled analgesia, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory agents and regional analgesics alone or combined with additives are currently used to provide effective postoperative analgesia. These modalities are best utilized when combined in a multimodal approach to treat acute pain in perioperative pediatric patients.