Pediatric Sedation and Analgesia
Children routinely present to emergency department in pain and subsequently undergo painful procedures. Inadequate relief of a child's pain and distress not only affects the experience of the children and their caregivers, but also can influence procedural outcomes. Although management options are widely available, pain and anxiety in children is often undertreated. Development of a pain and sedation management plan must be standardized and multimodal, yet individualizable. This chapter reviews a variety of oral, intranasal, and intravenous analgesic agents, as well as nonpharmacologic modalities for pain and sedation management. Topical and injectable anesthetics will be covered as well. Patient and procedural factors guide medication selection, and slow titration with careful monitoring can achieve the desired level of sedation and pain management while minimizing adverse events.
