To deal with the stress of a child who needs to have an operation, doctors have used a simple, side-effect-free and effective method. Indeed, in children, tapping on a tablet would have the same effect before an operation as the administration of a sedative, according to the results ofa study presented at the World Congress of Anesthesiologists in Hong Kong.
Researchers from the CHU de Lyon in France conducted a study with 115 children aged 4 to 10 who were due to undergo an operation. They were divided into two groups. While one (55 patients) was taking 0.3 mg / kg oral sedative, the other (60 participants) was able to use a tablet for 20 minutes.
“Theoretically we give a drug to try to relax the child, but the purpose of the digital tablet is to avoid this drug and to distract the child from the separation from his parents, from this unknown world that can to be scary “, explains Dr Mathilde de Queiroz, anesthetist at the mother-child hospital of the CHU de Lyon.
The tablet, a sedative without side effects
Throughout the study, the psychological state of the young patients was analyzed, like that of the parents. The researchers focused on four key moments: arrival at the care center, separation between children and parents, the start of anesthesia and arrival in the operating room.
The results of this experiment showed that the level of anxiety was the same in the two groups of children and in the parents, but that there was, on the other hand, a better quality of induction of anesthesia for the group “tablets. “. Parents and nurses declared via a questionnaire that the child’s falling asleep was more satisfactory in the “tablets” group.
The digital tablet before the operation with a loco-regional anesthesia makes it possible to reduce the dose of drugs but they also offer a better awakening to young children.
“The use of iPad or other digital tablet devices are non-pharmacological tools that can reduce perioperative stress without any sedative effect in pediatric outpatient surgery,” says Dr. Chassard.
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