Psycho-Affective and Sensory-Perceptual Stimulation in Children Hospitalized in Intensive Care

Abstract

We present here the particular features of an approach that we have been developing as an interdisciplinary team caring for critically ill patients—severe meningitis, polytrauma, neurological pathologies requiring surgical intervention, and comatose patients—in the Intensive Care Unit of the “Dr. Héctor Quintana” Children’s Hospital in San Salvador de Jujuy.

Our operative modality is grounded in early psychoneurological development, employing strategies that stimulate the sensory-perceptual and motor systems, which in most cases have been blocked by the severity of the pathology.

The child’s early connection with their body and environment reduces the risk of abnormal behavioral patterns becoming established. At the same time, by providing pleasurable experiences, we seek to counteract the aggressive experiences derived from the complex therapy to which these children are subjected.

We include parents as essential collaborators in the task of their children’s recovery, in order to avoid the emotions shown by young children when a loved person leaves them or when a stranger attempts to replace that person.

This task would not be possible without the collaboration of medical professionals, nurses, and service staff.

Through the use of special stimulation techniques based on affection and care for the child, we aim to address the illness and mobilize the health capacities that every subject possesses.

We perceived early on that, in children’s recovery, parents’ attitudes, feelings, and desires almost always have a decisive influence. With parents, we act as a bridge so that our young patients may appropriate the past that belongs to them and thus leave open a space for what remains unknown in the future, beyond the illness affecting them or the limitations brought about by their deficits.