From 8 to 12 years old

Clinical trials are done in hospitals or medical centres.

Sometimes, medicines given to children to treat a disease can cause an unintended effect, such as a headache or a rash on the skin. This is what we call a side effect. During the study of a medicine, it is very important for doctors to know whether there are any side effects in the children. If these harmful effects occur, they should always smaller than the positive effects that the medicine can bring to the child’s health.

Sin ensayos clínicos, no podemos saber cuál es la mejor manera de dar un medicamento a los niños porque:

• Los niños tienen enfermedades distintas a las de los adultos. 

• Los cuerpos de los niños y los de los adultos son diferentes. Los niños tienen los pulmones más pequeños, menos músculo alrededor de los huesos, su corazón palpita más fuerte... Y están continuamente creciendo!

• What are the best medicines that children should take when they are sick.

•  If one medicine works better than another.

•  If there is a better way to give a medicine, such as taking a tablet or pill instead of having an injection.

•  If the use of different amounts of this medicine works better.

The only way to know if a medicine or treatment works correctly is to study them very carefully. It is very important to know how a medicine works not only in children in general, but also according to the age of those children. We cannot give the same amount of a drug to a 6-year-old child and to a 14-year-old teenager because, as children grow, the effects of the drugs change.

It is a preparation of different compounds (biologic, chemical or cellular) that are used for the purpose of improving the health of the children who have a disease, to stop it or to prevent it. Not only do they help to relieve the symptoms of a disease: they are also used to diagnose diseases. For example: when we take a syrup in order to test how the syrup circulates through our stomach. In this case, this medicine helps doctors to know what kind of disease affects this organ.

Medications may appear in different formats: pills, capsules, syrups, creams, injections ...

Medical devices are devices used to diagnose or treat a disease. These are their main objectives:

• Allow doctors to collect information. For example, a thermometer to measure fever or a glucose meter.

• They serve to improve or treat the effects of the disease. For example, an inhaler to control an asthma attack or a syringe to inject insulin into diabetic children.