Easing pain in children.

Abstract

The assessment and management of pain in children has been essentially ignored until recently. Thankfully, these "dark ages of pain" are ending. The trauma nurse is an integral part of the pain management team and can have a positive impact on outcome by using a combination of relatively simple strategies. These include using multiple types of assessment to measure the severity of pain; providing adequate pain relief with a combination of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions; and carefully monitoring and documenting the efficacy of all pain management approaches.