Pain Management for Children

Course overview

Children with persistent pain beyond the time frame of acute injury are often not diagnosed immediately and research has reported at times it is as long as one year before diagnosis is made. Persistent pain shows a female preponderance and this incidents of pain increases during puberty. This lecture will discuss pain types and mechanisms to identify the symptoms. A review of scientific advances in identifying brain changes or reorganization that occur with persistent pain will be presented. In children with persistent pain there are similar patterns of symptoms, behaviors, and cognitive changes which must be addressed for an effective treatment. Because persistent pain is complex an interaction of physical, affective, sociocultural, behavioral and cognitive factors are involved. Due to the above interaction recent studies strongly support using a biopsychosocial approach for treatment so that the components involved can all be addressed.