問題詳情

Questions 46-50    Many preterm babies, especially those in the intensive care unit, are often subject to variousintrusive life-saving but painful procedures, such as heel pricking or insertion of a thin tube to deliverfluids or medicine. What is stunning is that analgesic is only used about one third of the time. Decadesago, doctors used to believe that newborn babies do not feel pain and that even if they do feel pain,giving them painkillers or analgesics would do them more harm than good. However, recently,medical professionals and clinicians have started to revisit this view using more advanced technologysuch as fMRI and electroencephalography (EEG). EEG detects very different brain-wave patternswhen babies receive painful and painless procedures. Although this incorrect view has been clearedup, we still have very limited understanding of infant pain. Treating infant pain is a daunting task bothfor the experienced and novice medical professionals.   What really concerns the parents and medical professionals is the lack of appropriate guidelineswhen analgesic is used for babies. The lack of guidelines can be attributed to the fact that the efficacyof analgesic is often affected by its quantity given to babies. Determination of the dose of analgesiafor babies is tricky because not all analgesics for adults are suitable for babies, and those that canindeed be given to babies often lead to different effects in babies. This thus makes dosing a thornyissue. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that babies are not capable of articulating how they feel.To address this problem, medical professionals have started to appeal to EEG to objectively measurepain-related brain activities in babies and to determine whether a given pain killer is effective inalleviating pain during necessary medical procedures. Dr. Bonnie Stevens, a senior scientist from theUniversity of Toronto, adds several caveats: the current EEG research only involves small samplesof participants, and the period of observation of EEG response is short and may not correlate wellwith behavior. Dr. Stevens further notes: The cost and expertise required for the application of EEGmeasures of pain might be prohibitive. Due to the above issues, medical professionals need to keeprefining the EEG approach to pain measurement and to allow it to be used in various clinical settings.Notwithstanding, the preliminary EEG findings are promising. Before the use of the EEG technology,it is not clear whether morphine -- an analgesic frequently given to adults in medical treatment --provides equally effective pain relief in babies. Now, medical professionals can tell whether babieswho are given morphine experience less pain, at least in the lab setting. Existing EEG measurementsare mainly used in the lab and for group research purposes, rather than for individual clinical needs.With more extensive application of the EEG technology in the clinical setting, medical professionalswill be better able to identify more effective pain relief drugs, and lower numbers of painfulprocedures performed on newborn babies.
46. What is this article mainly about?
(A)The evolution of various pharmacological treatment for babies in pain
(B) Non-invasive pain relief treatment for infants suffering from brain injuries
(C) The advance in views on infant pain assessment and treatment
(D)Guidelines of the analgesic procedures for preterm babies
(E) Physiological and neurological basis of infant pains

參考答案

答案：C
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(0),B(0),C(0),D(0),E(0)

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