It is usually used on patients as a means of temporarily and safely limiting movement and is generally more effective than holding the person down.
Using a papoose board to temporarily and safely limit movement is often preferable to medical sedation, which presents serious potential risks, including death.
As a result, restraint is preferred by some parents as an alternative to sedation, behavior management/anxiety reduction techniques, better pain management or a low-risk anxiolytic such as nitrous oxide.
[6] Michael and Edward DeRose, two of the owners of Small Smiles, said that they used papoose boards so that they could do dental work on larger numbers of children in a more rapid manner.
Papoose boards were originally a wood-and-leather device used by many Native American tribes to swaddle their infants and children.