Burn Recovery in Children

Phases of Recovery and Healing in the Burn Patient

Each year, thousands of children are subjected to life threatening complications associated with burns. For many of these children the recovery after a burn is quite complicated. As parents a child burn patient, understanding the stages of burn recovery commonly seen in children who suffer from burns, will aide in supporting the burn recovery more effectively.

Burn recovery is a process by which not only the pediatric burn patient must endure but also the entire family and support network. Understanding the various phases a child and family are expected to go through, emotionally, will provide for a more clear understanding in what is considered a normal healing and recovery process after a burn.

In general terms, most children will begin their burn recovery process by entering into a survival phase in which anxiety is most prevalent. For burn patients suffering from second and third degree burns, the survival phase is seen almost immediately when the child is admitted to the hospital.

Following, and often concurrent with, the survival phase, is the next phase known as pain. Without saying, this is the phase in which the burn patient must endure the physical complications associated with second and third degree burns.

As survival and pain are placed under control, the burn patient will often fall into a third phase in which there is a desire to understand and search out the meaning of the injury. It is during this period that many children will begin to suffer from nightmares and common emotional complications associated with the circumstances which led to the burn injury.

In an effort to control emotional and psychological complications, burn patients are often administered medications to control psychological and sleep complications. Once these complications are placed under control, the child will enter into a phase known as acceptance. As the most profound stage of healing, wherein emotional complications are controlled to some extent, the patient and family can settle into a realm of acceptance which further aides in the recovery process once released from the hospital.