Researchers developed and tested a new instrument, which allowed them to automatically assess pain in kids in a clinical setting for pain monitoring.

Huang said controlling pain is important, not only for the child’s comfort, but also for recovery. However, several issues, particularly age-related communication difficulties, make existing pediatric pain assessment methods problematic.
Clinical pain assessments, aided by nurses or parents, are often used in lieu of patient self-report in children because of these limitations.
The researchers used the software to analyze pain-related facial expressions from videos taken of 50 youths, aged five to 18 years old, who had undergone laparoscopic appendectomies at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego.
Based on the analysis, along with clinical data input by the study team, the software provided pain level scores for each participant.
"The software demonstrated good-to-excellent accuracy in assessing pain conditions," said Huang.
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The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.
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