Children's Hospital Boston 300 Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA 02115
(617) 355-6000
X
Clinical Services:
Pain Treatment Services
Pain Treatment Services, offered through the Department of Anesthesia, is a multidisciplinary program which provides treatment and support for acute and chronic pain problems in children and young adults. It includes:
  • the Acute Pain Treatment Service
  • the Chronic Pain Management Clinic, where both inpatient and outpatient services are available.
Together, these services provide care for more than 2,000 patients each year, most of whom are postoperative. Children with cancer, sickle cell disease, hemophilia, AIDS, cystic fibrosis and other medical diseases form a challenging but rewarding group. Patient-controlled analgesia is administered to about half of these patients and epidural anesthesia to another quarter. The remainder receive a variety of treatments, depending on their individual factors.
Acute Pain Treatment Service
The Acute Pain Treatment Service is a consultative service that is called by a patient's primary care team to help manage pain while the patient is in the hospital. Many patients seen by the Acute Pain Treatment Service are postoperative patients. But the team is also consulted by pediatricians to assist with patients who suffer from pain of their medical diseases. Common examples are sickle cell disease, patients with mucositis from chemotherapy, patients with abdominal pain of unknown etiology, and patients with HIV infections.

Common techniques used to manage acute pain include:

  • patient-controlled analgesia (PCA)
  • epidural analgesics
  • continuous infusions of opioids (usually morphine)
  • intermittent doses of methadone or other opioids
Each of these techniques may have specific advantages or disadvantages for an individual patient. A consultant anesthesiologist carefully reviews each patient's situation before deciding on a pain management plan. We are available 24 hours a day to adjust or modify the plan, and at all times, a team of anesthesiologists and nurses work together to manage each patient's pain.
Chronic Pain Management Clinic
The outpatient Chronic Pain Management Clinic offers multidisciplinary treatment of children and adolescents who have a variety of pain problems, including headaches, reflex sympathetic dystrophy, fibromyalgia, low back pain, patellofemoral syndrome, and more.

In addition to receiving care by anesthesiologists, all patients seen in this clinic are evaluated by a psychologist who specializes in pain management through behavioral medicine, and by a physical therapist. Closely associated with the clinic are specialists in orthopedic surgery, rheumatology, neurology, neurosurgery, and psychopharmacology, consulted on an individual basis.

Our clinic sees approximately 150 new patients each year and handles several hundred follow-up visits. During the course of treatment, many patients are appropriate candidates for regional anesthesia or neural blockade.

X
Related topics:
Abdominal Pain
Headaches
Pain Management and Itching
Pain management research happening at Children's Hospital Boston
The Mayo Family Pediatric Pain Rehabilitation Center
X
X The information on this website should not be taken as medical advice,
which can only be given to you by your personal health care professional.
X
X Copyright © Children's Hospital Boston. All rights reserved.