Objective Markers of Pain Perception in Pediatric Emergency

Overview

Pain is a major problem in the care of children in pediatric emergencies. Indeed, its relief rests on the oral communication of the young patient, who does not always able to it (difficult to verbalize, fear of the hospital, problem mental development ...). There is no way in which pain can be apprehended objectively, immediately and effectively. To advance our knowledge of this problem, several approaches have been studied as from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), or from autonomic parameters. However, all these approaches have their limitations: although fMRI presents interesting performances, it allows only a retrospective analysis, and cannot adapt to the clinical context of the young patient for example. EEG-based approaches and autonomic parameters show interesting results but suffer from perfectible sensitivity to muscle activation for EEG whereas the vegetative parameters to stress. In this context, our working hypothesis considers that the search for markers of painful perception must be based on a neurophysiological approach, based on the combined analysis of the EEG and autonomic responses in real time. The aim of this work is to study (1) the cortical (EEG) and autonomic (cardiovascular, skin, pupillary) responses induced by sutures in children who can communicate their pain according to whether they cause pain or not.

Conditions