Pediatric anesthesiology

The task of pediatric anesthesiology is to allow an examination or surgery to be performed safely for the child while ensuring the necessary comfort. It therefore coordinates all perioperative management by preparing the patient as well as possible, ensuring their safety and providing the best possible comfort.

Performance

General anesthesia

General anesthesia in the strict sense of the term is achieved by the administration of drugs temporarily suppressing both the patient's state of consciousness, pain perception, and movements so that the surgeon can operate ideally. Breathing is usually supported by a respirator, while other vital functions are monitored and supported through vascular access should it be necessary.
Combined anesthesia

It is often not possible to perform locoregional anesthesia while awake in children because they are afraid, however. Therefore, locoregional anesthesia is performed when the child is asleep. The advantage of this type of anesthesia is that fewer drugs are used during the procedure and in the early postoperative phase the child has no pain. Therefore, this type of anesthesia is used very frequently.
Loco-regional anesthesia

For many surgeries, there is the possibility of numbing only the part of the body undergoing the procedure. This procedure is called regional or loco-regional anesthesia.

Patient care

Preparatory management

All clinical aspects of the patient are checked, and necessary arrangements are put in place so that the patient can be best prepared for an intervention or examination, whether scheduled or emergency. Depending on the case, clinical and laboratory investigations are performed as well as therapeutic interventions that can improve the underlying condition. During the anesthesiological examination, all the necessary information is gathered to propose and agree with the patient and parents on the best anesthesiological strategy.

Preoperative management

On the day of the examination/surgery, medicine aimed at decreasing the patient's anxiety is prescribed and preoperative medicine necessary to decrease anesthesiological risk is administered.

Operative management

Prior to surgery, specific monitoring is provided for the performance of anesthesia aimed at ensuring the safety of the child. During the examination/surgery, continuous surveillance of the child is ensured by performing ongoing clinical assessment aimed at maintaining, protecting, regulating, and optimizing the patient's vital functions modified or altered during the surgical act.

Sedation or general anesthesia
In some cases, drugs with a sedative effect can be used. The patient is awake and quiet. Depending on the case to avoid the pain of the procedure, local anesthesia is used. These are mainly procedures involving circumscribed areas of the body (e.g., small sutures).
General anesthesia is characterized by loss of consciousness and sensation of the whole body; the brain does not react to external stimuli, and therefore the patient feels nothing and remembers nothing.
Deep sedation is called deep sedation when, for diagnostic investigations in which the patient does not have to move (CT, MRI, Scintigraphy), general anesthesia is achieved with a single drug with hypnotic effect.

Postoperative management

After awakening, the pediatric anesthesiologist organizes appropriate postoperative surveillance and in particular pain therapy. If necessary, surveillance takes place in pediatric intermediate care where the various specialists define postoperative therapies.

Doctors

  • Dr.ssa med.

    Busi Ilaria

    Caposervizio

    Profile

  • Dr. med.

    Genini Alessandro

    Medico specialista

    Profile

  • Dr.ssa med.

    Cortesi Cinzia

    Medico ospedaliero

    Profile

  • Dr.ssa med.

    Bonomo Roberta

    Capoclinica

    Profile

Locations

Pediatric anesthesiology is based at the Pediatric Institute of Italian Switzerland at the Bellinzona Regional Hospital (San Giovanni). In special critical cases that cannot be transferred to Bellinzona, the service strives to give the necessary support to children at other Regional Hospitals.

The English version of this page was created with the aid of automatic translation tools and may contain errors and omissions.
The original version is the page in Italian.