Palliative Care For Infants Children And Adolescents

There are few things requiring more expertise, delicacy, and compassion than caring for an infant, child, or young adult with a life-limiting condition. This guide provides professionals involved in pediatric palliative and end-of-life care with comprehensive information.

"We hope that the lives of all children will be filled with possibility, with open horizons and rainbows into the future. Children with serious illnesses, their families, and those who care for them, confront the realization that "not everything is possible," that despite dramatic scientific and medical advances, the lifespan of some children will be shortened. This threat of premature loss heightens the sense of time for children and families alike, and challenges clinicians to create new pathways of hope for them"--

The Textbook of Interdisciplinary Pediatric Palliative Care, by Drs. Joanne Wolfe, Pamela Hinds, and Barbara Sourkes, aims to inform interdisciplinary teams about palliative care of children with life-threatening illness. It addresses critical domains such as language and communication, symptoms and quality of life, and the spectrum of life-threatening illnesses in great depth. This comprehensive product takes a first-of-its-kind team approach to the unique needs of critically ill children. It shows how a collaborative, interdisciplinary care strategy benefits patients and their families. If you deal with the complex care of critically ill children, this reference provides a uniquely integrated perspective on complete and effective care. Respect interdisciplinary perspectives, and provide the most comprehensive care. Use an integrated approach to address the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs of children and their families. Understand and heed your strengths and vulnerabilities in order to provide the best care for your patients. Recognize the necessity of linking hospital-based palliative care with community resources. Implement consistent terminology for use by the entire palliative care team. Access the full text online with regular updates and supplemental text and image resources.

"Children's palliative care is an evolving specialty and as such our knowledge base cannot remain static. This book constantly challenges the reader to critically analyze their own practices and beliefs within an evidence-based framework and as such makes a valuable contribution to the growing body of knowledge on this important subject." - Susan Fowler-Kerry, in the Foreword. This book caters for readers from different working environments and levels of experience. It is ideal for paediatric nurses with no specialist palliative care knowledge, and also for palliative care nurses with no specialist paediatric experience. Other healthcare professionals and therapists working with children, young people and their families will also find this book invaluable. It will also be ideal for undergraduate and postgraduate health and social care students, and professionals involved in children's hospices, community services and charity groups. "This book captures not just the rapidly evolving evidence base, but also as many current developments as possible and applies them in a meaningful way to the care of infants, children, and young people living with life-limiting illness, and their families. It offers an overview of contemporary issues and helps to stimulate the type of dialogue that can bring about the actions that will make a real difference for the children, young people and families in our care." - Rita Pfund, in the Preface.

The first volume in the "What Do I Do Now?: Palliative Care" series, Pediatric Palliative Care uses a case-based palliative care approach to cover common and important topics in the examination, investigation, and management of children with serious illness. Each chapter provides a discussion of the diagnosis, key points to remember, and selected references for further reading. The book addresses a wide range of topics, including the goals of care, symptom management, care for neonatal and adolescent populations, and the emotional, social, cultural and spiritual needs of ill children and their families. Written by authors from a variety of fields such as nursing, chaplaincy, social work, and psychology, this book is suited for pediatricians, palliative care and hospice providers, nurses, and allied health practitioners. Pediatric Palliative Care is an engaging collection of thought-provoking cases which clinicians can utilize when they encounter difficult patients. The volume is also a self-assessment tool that tests the reader's ability to answer the question, "What do I do now?"

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Pediatric Palliative Care" that was published in Children

'Pediatric Palliative Care', the fourth volume in the 'HPNA Palliative Nursing Manuals' series, addresses paediatric hospice, symptom management, paediatric pain, the neonatal intensive care unit, transitioning goals of care between the emergency department and intensive care unit, and grief and bereavement in paediatric palliative care.

For patients and their loved ones, no care decisions are more profound than those made near the end of life. Unfortunately, the experience of dying in the United States is often characterized by fragmented care, inadequate treatment of distressing symptoms, frequent transitions among care settings, and enormous care responsibilities for families. According to this report, the current health care system of rendering more intensive services than are necessary and desired by patients, and the lack of coordination among programs increases risks to patients and creates avoidable burdens on them and their families. Dying in America is a study of the current state of health care for persons of all ages who are nearing the end of life. Death is not a strictly medical event. Ideally, health care for those nearing the end of life harmonizes with social, psychological, and spiritual support. All people with advanced illnesses who may be approaching the end of life are entitled to access to high-quality, compassionate, evidence-based care, consistent with their wishes. Dying in America evaluates strategies to integrate care into a person- and family-centered, team-based framework, and makes recommendations to create a system that coordinates care and supports and respects the choices of patients and their families. The findings and recommendations of this report will address the needs of patients and their families and assist policy makers, clinicians and their educational and credentialing bodies, leaders of health care delivery and financing organizations, researchers, public and private funders, religious and community leaders, advocates of better care, journalists, and the public to provide the best care possible for people nearing the end of life.