Paediatric anaesthesia
-
Paediatric anaesthesia · Jan 2015
ReviewMonitoring depth of anesthesia: from consciousness to nociception. A window on subcortical brain activity.
Anesthesia results from several inhibitor processes, which interact to lead to loss of consciousness, amnesia, immobility, and analgesia. The anesthetic agents act on the whole brain, the cortical and subcortical areas according to their receptor targets. The conscious processes are rather integrated at the level of the cortical neuronal network, while the nonconscious processes such as the nociception or implicit memory require subcortical processing. ⋯ Basically, the skin conductance might be the most adapted to assess the stress in the awake or sedated neonate, while the performances of this method appear disappointing under anesthesia. The surgical pleth index is still poorly investigated in children. The analgesia nociception index showed promising results in adults, which have to be confirmed, especially in children and in infants, and lastly pupillometry, which can be considered as reliable and reactive in children as in adults, but which is still sometimes complicated in its use.
-
Paediatric anaesthesia · Jan 2015
ReviewAwake caudals and epidurals should be used more frequently in neonates and infants.
The current literature provides fundamental insights regarding the neurotoxic potency of various general anesthetic drugs in neonates and small infants. Therefore, considerations to minimize the use of general anesthetic drugs in this age group are required. ⋯ Training, practical hand skills, good infrastructure, a well-defined indication, and a team approach including the entire operation room staff are the major prerequisites to implement these techniques in the daily clinical practice. This review article discusses all present aspects and possible future evolutions of caudal and epidural anesthesia under sedation.
-
Paediatric anaesthesia · Jan 2015
ReviewTreating perioperative anxiety and pain in children: a tailored and innovative approach.
Millions of children undergo outpatient surgery in the United States each year; the overwhelming majority will experience significant perioperative anxiety and pain. Behavioral preparation programs focused on skills acquisition and modeling, considered essential for effective preparation, are no longer offered to most children and families in the outpatient surgery setting. ⋯ The rapid growth of the World Wide Web and increasing access to Internet by families across the country provide an opportunity to develop tailored, Web-based behavioral preparation programs that can be accessed repeatedly at times convenient to the child and family, that include coping skills training and modeling, and that can provide unique output based upon child and parent characteristics known to impact perioperative pain and anxiety. In this review article, we present a conceptual framework for a computer-based intervention that may transform the way we manage children and parents before and after surgery.
-
Paediatric anaesthesia · Jan 2015
ReviewPain in children - are we accomplishing the optimal pain treatment?
Morphine, paracetamol and local anesthetics have for a long time been the foremost used analgesics in the pediatric patient by tradition but not always enough effective and associated with side effects. The purpose with this article is to propose alternative approaches in pain management, not always supported up by substantial scientific work but from a combination of science and clinical experience in the field. The scientific literature has been reviewed in parts regarding different aspects of pain assessment and analgesics used for treatment of diverse pain conditions with focus on procedural and acute pain. ⋯ Increased interest and improved education of the doctors prescribing analgesics is important in accomplishing a better pain management. The optimal treatment with analgesics is depending on the analysis of pain origin and analgesics used should be adjusted thereafter. A multimodal treatment regime is advocated for optimal analgesic effect.