A 14-year-old boy is scheduled for spinal fusion with implantation of rods from T₁0 to L2.During the preoperative interview and assessment,he asks the perioperative nurse how bad his pain will be when he wakes up and if he will have enough pain medicine available.He also wonders how the nurse will know when his pain is severe enough to give him pain medicine.The perioperative nurse assures the patient that he will have many options available to him to manage his pain after the surgery.An appropriate risk reduction strategy that the nurse can implement during the preoperative assessment is to:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

In the past,many common fallacies existed about pain in the pediatric population.The evaluation of a pediatric patient's level of pain is performed using a variety of assessment tools (pain scales)that are based on the age and developmental level of the child.The adolescent pediatric pain tool (APPT)is a line drawing of a body; the child marks the drawing where he or she has pain.Other tools include Likert-type scales rating pain on a score of 0 (no pain)to 10 (worst pain)or incorporate several components of pain assessment (subjective and objective data).

A 14-Year-Old Boy Is Scheduled for Spinal Fusion with Implantation