Digital Medicine Crushers in Paediatric Care: A Narrative Review

Ensuring safe and reliable oral medication administration in paediatrics has been a clinical challenge for years, due to the absence of age-specific formulations and difficulties in preparing accurate doses. A comprehensive evaluation of the efficacy, handiness, and safety of a new wave of digital medicine crushers reveals a promising frontier in paediatric oral medication administration. However, a critical analysis of the methodologies used to assess these devices highlights the need for more rigorous and standardised approaches to validate their superiority over conventional crushing methods. Yet, existing studies comparing these devices are not methodologically uniform, and thus, conclusions are weakened. Few measures recover the dose quantitatively using validated methods, such as high-performance liquid chromatography, and paediatric dosing evaluations are still limited. Usability testing has mainly assessed qualitative impressions as opposed to validated rating tools or time-motion analysis. Safety findings are encouraging but await controlled comparisons across devices and settings. The current research has identified differences in drug recovery, particle size uniformity, and patient experience based on device and environment. Closed-unit automated systems with disposable parts have shown the ability to reduce medication residues, decrease aerosol formation, and enhance dose consistency, especially in paediatric dosing where weight-based precision is critical. Early investigation also reveals workflowrelated advantages, such as lowered preparation time and physical workload for healthcare providers. This review examines the complex challenges of paediatric dosing, the inherent risks associated with traditional practices, and the technological promise of digital solutions, while providing a framework for their robust comparative evaluation.