Palliative Care for Children
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Definition of Pediatric Palliative Care
Developed by Children’s Hospice & Palliative Care Coalition’s Professional Advisory Committee, 2007
Pediatric Palliative Care is both a philosophy of care and an organized, structured system of delivering care to children living with life threatening conditions and their families. The goal of Pediatric Palliative Care is to prevent and relieve suffering and to maximize quality of life for children of all ages, and their family members/support systems.
This family centered approach to care is provided by an interdisciplinary team of professionals including medicine, nursing, social work, chaplaincy, nutrition, pharmacy, therapists and other health care professionals. Pediatric Palliative Care offers expert pain and symptom prevention and management. Honest discussion around the child’s medical condition serves as the foundation for collaborative decision-making regarding goals of care. This patient-focused, family centered, holistic health care incorporates the physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs of the child and family to enhance their capacity to cope with a life threatening condition.
Pediatric Palliative Care can be delivered concurrently with life-prolonging care or as the main focus of care and is treatment that should be started early in the trajectory of the condition. It preserves the integrity of the family during the condition progression, addressing anticipatory grief and bereavement support following the death.
The committee used the following palliative care resources as guidelines for this definition taking into account issues specific to children.
National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care click here
National Quality Forum Standards and Practices for Palliative Care click here
Institute of Medicine Report, When Children Die: Improving Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Children and Their Families (2003) click here.