Cancer Pain Management in Children

Children with cancer can experience pain from where their cancer is located, bone pain and treatments like chemotherapy and radiology. Pain can be undertreated by lack of knowledge of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments which can cause pain to be a major issue for children with cancer.

Assessing Children’s Pain

The most critical and valuable way to measure pain in children is by getting a self-report from the child. Children should be asked to describe their pain by telling the location of the pain, the intensity/severity of the pain and how long they have been experiencing pain. Some nurses and caregivers can help assess pain by using a pain scale in which the child can describe the pain they are feeling on a level of 1-10. Parents can also help to assess pain by telling nurses words the child uses to describe pain and if the child tells when they are in pain. 

Treating pain with Medication

Pain can be treated pharmacologically by giving out doses of medicine. One way that medication for pain is administered is through the analgesic stepladder approach. By using this approach medication is given based on the level of pain the child describes they are experiencing. Medication that is administered on a schedule can help to keep the child from being under-medicated and in as little pain as possible. 

Non-pharmacological Pain Interventions

Non-pharmacological pain interventions have been known to help children in handling their pain; this method is done by distracting children from the pain. Some ways to do this are singing songs, reading stories and for older children deep breathing techniques. Guided imagery is another popular technique that asks the child to imagine a place and think of what things they would see, smell and hear while there.