Update in the Treatment of Chronic Pain within Pediatric Patients

Pediatric chronic pain is a challenging entity to evaluate and treat as it encompasses a wide variety of presentations often with overlapping psychosocial implications. Chronic pain may have significant effects upon a child's involvement in academic, athletic, and social participation. If unrecognized, it may have deleterious effects upon family interactions and stability. The treatment of pediatric chronic pain is focused on not only providing analgesia, but also on assisting the child and family with reintegrating into a more functional lifestyle. Given the complex multifactorial causes of pain, a comprehensive multidisciplinary treatment plan is often the most effective way to achieve remission. This paper will discuss two examples of pediatric pain that have shown the good response to treatment with a multidisciplinary team approach: complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and amplified pain due to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome-hypermobility type (EDS-HT). Treatment of these patients often encompasses a multimodal approach that incorporates physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), medication(s), pain psychology, procedure(s), sleep hygiene, education, and encouragement of overall physiologic wellness. Management principles are to reduce pain and help prevent future occurrences.