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Hear this textPediatric Palliative Care
Supportive Care for Critically Ill Children and their Families
What is Pediatric Palliative Care?
Pediatric palliative care, which is also known as supportive care for critically ill children, focuses on relieving suffering from pain, nausea, fatigue, side effects of treatments and other symptoms. It also focuses on treating the whole person by integrating the psychological, emotional and spiritual aspect of patient care. Care is provided by a team of health professionals that may include physicians, nurses, home health aides, social workers, pharmacists and chaplains. The goal is to ensure the best quality of life for the child and family throughout the child’s illness. The team helps children live as long as possible, while helping families cope throughout the child’s illness and in the event of their death with bereavement support.
Who can benefit from Supportive Care?
- Children with a life-threatening or life-limiting illness and their loved ones
- Children born with a terminal illness such as chromosomal abnormality
- Children whose illness is stable, but secondary complications increase risk of death
For children with a life-threatening illness for which a cure may be possible, such as cancer, pediatric palliative care should be provided at the same time as aggressive curative therapy.
Where can Supportive Care be provided?
- Hospitals
- In home by home care providers
- Hospice programs
Pediatric palliative care is usually introduced to patients while they are at a hospital. Palliative or Supportive Care teams work closely with the family to address the need for support in the home.
Several types of care can be provided to children in their home:
- Skilled nursing: nurses can assess new medications or offer wound care.
- Private duty or shift nursing: RN’s (Registered Nurse) or LPN’s (Licensed Practical Nurse) provide daily patient care.
- Private duty nursing: patients that require assistance with technical items such as feeding tubes or ventilators.
Does Western Pennsylvania offer Supportive Care to Children?
Pediatric palliative care for children is available in Western Pennsylvania through hospital and in-home programs. There are also home care and hospice agencies that provide pediatric palliative care to patients in their homes.
Home-based palliative care is usually paid for by the patient’s home care insurance benefit. Home-based palliative care services are often provided by hospice agency workers who have expertise in symptom management. This type of care can be beneficial for children when they need the specialized care of hospice staff to provide symptom management but have not stopped receiving aggressive therapy. Finally, hospice services are appropriate for and typically offered to patients who are considered “terminally ill,” meaning they have a life expectancy of less than six months.
Carol May, Manager of Supportive Care Program, Children’s
