Salt Fluoridation An Adjunct to Community Water Fluoridation.

After 70 years of community water fluoridation in the United States, still over 100 million people do not have the benefits of dietary fluoride. The saturation level may have been reached. Salt fluoridation can be an adjunct method for improving children's dental health in noncommunity water fluoridation areas.

Interviewing and Urine Drug Toxicology Screening in a Pediatric Pain Management Center: An Analysis of Analgesic Nonadherence and Aberrant Behaviors in Adolescents and Young Adults.

Objectives: Many adolescents and young adults report having chronic pain. Urine drug toxicology (UDT) is not routinely used in the pediatric pain management population, despite more routine use in adults with pain, particularly those prescribed opioids. As a first step toward establishing monitoring practices in pediatric and adolescent pain management, the present study evaluated the role of UDT in conjunction with a standard clinical interview in identifying the rate of adherence to an established analgesic regimen.

Mapping the literature: palliative care within adult and child neurology.

Objectives of this review were to examine definitions and background of palliative care, as well as address whether there is an increased need for palliative care education among neurologists. The review also explores what literature exists regarding palliative care within general neurology and child neurology. A literature review was conducted examining use of palliative care within child neurology.

Use of a clinical pathway to improve the acute management of vaso-occlusive crisis pain in pediatric sickle cell disease.

Background: The most common, debilitating morbidity of sickle cell disease (SCD) is vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) pain. Although guidelines exist for its management, they are generally not well-followed, and research in other pediatric diseases has shown that clinical pathways improve care. The purpose of our study was to determine whether a clinical pathway improves the acute management of sickle cell vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) pain in the pediatric emergency department (PED).

Undetected Ultracet™ dependence in an adolescent with nonmalignant back pain.

Addiction to painkillers or other substances in pediatric and adolescent cases of noncancer chronic pain is an understudied phenomenon, even amidst documented increases in rates of prescription opioid use and misuse. Case studies can inform the training of clinicians in ethically negotiating a balance between optimizing analgesia and mitigating risk of aberrant drug-taking behaviors. This report discusses an 18-year-old woman with idiopathic scoliosis and clinical depression secondary to undertreated refractory chronic back pain who underwent surgery to correct pseudoarthrosis after a prior spinal instrumentation operation.

Pentobarbital withdrawal and treatment in an infant in the pediatric cardiac intensive care unit.

Withdrawal syndromes following administration of sedative and analgesic infusions represent a significant morbidity that is described increasingly in the pediatric critical care literature. However, there are few descriptions of pentobarbital withdrawal symptoms and their treatment in the pediatric population. We describe an infant receiving multiple sedative and analgesic medications, including pentobarbital, who was resistant to our institution's standard weaning protocol, but whose severe withdrawal symptoms responded dramatically to phenobarbital loading and maintenance.

"Scratching" beneath the surface: an integrative psychosocial approach to pediatric pruritus and pain.

Pruritus is prevalent in children with atopic dermatitis and associated with effects on mood, quality of life, sleep, scholastic performance, social and family functioning. In this study a 7-year-old African American female with severe atopic dermatitis, itching and pain refractory to multiple systemic and topical medications was referred for treatment. At baseline, the patient scratched to the point of bleeding, despite maximal doses of anti-histamines, antidepressant and topical therapies.

Parent self-efficacy for managing pain in seriously ill children and adolescents nearing end of life.

Objective: Using data from a multi-site study of parent-child symptom reporting concordance, this secondary analysis explored the role of parent self-efficacy related to pain management for seriously ill school-age children and adolescents.

Method: In the initial study, 50 children and adolescents who were expected to survive 3 years or less were recruited along with their parent/primary caregiver. Parent self-report data were used in this secondary analysis to describe parent self-efficacy for managing their child's pain, caregiver strain, mood states, and perception of the child's pain; to explore relationships among these variables; and to determine predictors of greater self-efficacy.

Select practice behaviors of clinicians on the use of opioids for adolescents with subacute and chronic nonmalignant pain.

Objectives: To characterize the opioid prescribing and monitoring practices of providers for chronic nonmalignant pain (CNP) and subacute postoperative pain (SAPOP) in adolescents.

Design: Web-based cross-sectional self-report survey.

Setting: Free-standing pediatric tertiary academic center.

Qualitative analysis of consults by a pediatric advanced care team during its first year of service.

Phenomenologic analysis of initial consults provided during the first year of a new Pediatric Advanced Care Team (PACT) program provides essential understanding of the experience and inform program direction and future clinical research. Parents bring to the consult a desire to remain experts in their children's lives yet experience vulnerability as they seek assistance in making critical decisions often under conditions of disquieting uncertainty. Dynamic communication efforts involving the referring providers, PACT team members, and family are a key influence in facilitating consults' stated goals and in establishing the integrated palliative paradigm in a tertiary care environment.

The use of oral ketamine for analgesia with dressing change in an infant with epidermolysis bullosa: report of a case.

Epidermolysis bullosa (EB) describes a spectrum of disease from occasional bullae and callus formation to a debilitating life-threatening condition. In this study, we report the use of intravenous ketamine given orally to an infant with a phenotypically severe form of EB simplex, Dowling-Meara subtype, to achieve analgesia during painful dressing changes.

Assessing resident knowledge of acute pain management in hospitalized children: a pilot study.

This pilot study was undertaken to evaluate the hypotheses that there are differences in pediatric pain management (PPM) knowledge across resident specialties, that questions in the form of multiple-choice items could detect such differences, and that resident knowledge of analgesic-related adverse drug events (ADEs) would be greater than knowledge of PPM. Questions were based on two general categories of knowledge within acute pain management in hospitalized children: pediatric pain assessment and treatment, and identification of analgesic-related ADEs. As part of the pilot nature of this study, a convenience sample of 60 residents completed a 10-item PPM knowledge assessment prior to a PPM lecture.

Sciatic neuropathy after lower-extremity trauma: successful treatment of an uncommon pain and disability syndrome in an adolescent.

Lower-extremity trauma is an uncommon but reported cause of sciatic nerve injury in children and adolescents. Failure to identify sciatic neuropathy after traumatic injury to the lower extremity may lead to the delayed institution of neuropathic pharmacotherapy, electrodiagnostic testing, physical therapy, and increased risk for the development of complex regional pain syndrome. This article presents a case of an adolescent male with neuropathic pain and weakness in the right lower extremity after traumatic injury.