What is pediatric palliative care about?
Palliative care for children and young people with life-limiting conditions is an active and total approach to care, embracing physical, emotional, social and spiritual elements.
Palliative care focuses on enhancement of quality of life for the child and support for the family and includes the management of distressing symptoms, provision of respite and care through death and bereavement(1).
The main focus is to provide quality of life for the child and support for the family using a multidisciplinary model.
According to the Children ACT/RCPCH 1989 report, pediatric palliative care includes children aged up to 18 years whose diagnosis is made in childhood and who live unexpectedly beyond this age.
Life-limiting conditions are defined as those for which there is no reasonable hope of cure and from which children or young people will die(1).
A Painting by Edvard Munch
"The Sick Child" 1896