Pain Management in Pediatric Intensive Care by Studying the Autonomic Balance

Fighting against the pain caused by the disease or by the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures for children is a daily and essential concern of health care in the pediatric sector. The quantification of pain is needed to effectively adjust analgesic therapy while limiting the side effects of treatment. Nowadays many scales are validated for children, but they are based on one-off measures and hetero assessments are often subjective and dependent on many factors including the presence of staff to children's sides. Recent developments in the analysis of the cardiac signal in real time under the influence of autonomic control, have led to the development of a new painful stress quantification index. A monitor has recently been developed and provides an index of nociception and analgesia (ANI index). The validation of this nociception index has not been validated for pediatric care in a sector where particular attention is given to control pain. The main purpose of this study is to show the consistency of the index compared to a validated pain scale and used routinely in non-sedated children hospitalized in pediatric intensive care units. The caregiver will have the opportunity to fine tune the effective treatment.