Abstract

Objective: To examine the therapeutic potential of stochastic vibrotactile stimulation (SVS) as a complementary non-pharmacological intervention for withdrawal in opioid-exposed newborns.

Study design: A prospective, within-subjects single-center study was conducted in 26 opioid-exposed newborns (>37 weeks; 16 male) hospitalized since birth and treated pharmacologically for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. A specially-constructed mattress delivered low-level SVS (30-60Hz, 10±12μm RMS), alternated in 30-min intervals between continuous vibration (ON) and no vibration (OFF) over a 6±8 hr session. Movement activity, heart rate, respiratory rate, axillary temperature and blood-oxygen saturation were calculated separately for ON and OFF.

Results: There was a 35% reduction in movement activity with SVS (p<0.001), with significantly fewer movement periods >30 sec duration for ON than OFF (p = 0.003). Incidents of tachypneic breaths and tachycardic heart beats were each significantly reduced with SVS, whereas incidents of eupneic breaths and eucardic heart beats each significantly increased with SVS (p<0.03). Infants maintained body temperature and arterial-blood oxygen level independent of stimulation condition.

Description

© 2017 Zuzarte et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Publisher

PLOS One

Date of publication

4-2017

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/4451

Document Type

Article

Included in

Engineering Commons

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