Background: For children with cancer in palliative care, pain and worry are common and frequently under-managed, which negatively impacts quality of life (QOL). Massage therapy (MT) can lead to reduced pain in children with chronic illnesses.…
Context: Although palliative care (PC) continues to be integrated into pediatric oncological care, only a minority of patients with cancer receive a formal PC consult.
Background: Pediatric palliative care occurs across contexts through the child's illness trajectory, including within the child or young person's community. Interactions with the ambulance service may occur with a child's deterioration, crisis, or…
Purpose: Pediatric patients (pt) awaiting heart transplantation (HTX) are among the most fragile patients, even more so when on continuous milrinone infusion or ventricular assist device (VAD). These pt are often in the hospital for very long periods…
BACKGROUND: Phase of Illness is used to describe the stages of a patient's illness in the palliative care setting. Categorization is based on individual needs, family circumstances, and the adequacy of a care plan. Substantial (κ = .67) and moderate…
OBJECTIVES: Place of death (POD) is considered a key quality indicator for adult end of-life care, but paediatric evidence is limited. Data from Child Death Overview Panel (CDOP) databases provides an opportunity to describe trends in POD as regional…
Metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD) is a rare autosomal recessive lysosomal disorder caused by a deficiency of the enzyme arylsulfatase A (ARSA). Symptoms include motor decline, developmental regression, decreased intellectual capabilities, and…
The use of a palliative care guideline in infants remains controversial in the NICU community. Triggers are only intermittently utilized within the NICU setting. Most NICUs implement strategies for near-death care, but few have guidelines for those…
Paediatric palliative care (PPC) is regarded as standard care for children and young people (CYP) with life-limiting conditions (LLCs). There is a lack of knowledge about the rate of CYP with LLCs, hampering the development of PPC. This retrospective…
Purpose of study Care for children with cardiac disease often involves difficult decisions and clinical uncertainty. Genomic Sequencing (GS) promises to improve clinical prognostics and could impact how difficult decisions are made. We sought to…
Aim: Evaluation of pediatric palliative home care of families with children suffering from neurodegeneration with brain iron accumulation (NBIA) and their parents. Material and methods: The children were treated at home by a multidisciplinary team.…
Objectives: * Discuss whether the Reiki intervention was feasible to implement with this population of very young hospitalized children receiving palliative care. * Discuss why parents thought the Reiki intervention was helpful to their child.…
The purpose of this study is to analyze the experience of hope that appears in a parent's blog presenting everyday life while caring for a child with Trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome). The author, Rebekah Peterson, began her blog on 17 March 2011 and…
Objectives: * Examine the key structures and processes of inpatient pediatric palliative care programs in the United States. * Assess the degree of variation in program delivery, staffing, and patient volumes. * Identify three threats and three…
Our pediatric palliative care group is called the "Pediatric Advanced Care Team," also known as "PACT." We created a novel system called #PACTimpact to identify situations in which team members go above and beyond for patients providing meaningful…
Objectives: * Describe a prospective study to evaluate how parents of children with advanced heart disease (AHD) perceive communication about prognosis with their child's physicians. * Describe results from this analysis that found no correlation…
Objectives: * List the types of community-based hospice and palliative care programs for children and describe barriers and facilitators to the use of these programs. * Describe the rates of referral and enrollment to community-based programs,…
Objectives: * Describe a longitudinal, iterative, and cross-organizational design process. * Describe pediatric palliative care program structure and process measurement. * Create additional opportunities to expand the benchmark data available for…
Background: Approximately 500,000 children in the United States suffer from serious illnesses each year and 50,000 die annually. Hospice and palliative care services are known to be beneficial for many children with serious illnesses and their…
Background: End-of-life (EOL) care for a child is a high-stakes situation that requires careful planning and practice; there is only one chance to get it right. Additionally, distress is often high in those caring for dying children. Despite the fact…
Objectives: * Recognize how PICUs/NICUs implement GBS IPPC recommendations. * Describe how PICUs/NICUs' resource influence their GBS care provision as related to IPPC recommendations. Original Research Background: Grief and bereavement support (GBS)…
Objectives: * Recognize the importance of religious/spiritual assessment and care in pediatric patients with serious illness. * Identify the elements of a spiritual assessment. * Assess the needs of pediatric residents in religious and spiritual…
Background: Spiritual support should be offered to all patients and their families regardless of their affiliated status with an organized religion. Aim: To understand nonreligious theistic parents’ spirituality and to explore how parents discuss…
Objectives: * Compare the benefits of a primary palliative care model to those of a specialty palliative care service. * Propose a stepwise process to initiate the transition from a specialty palliative care service to a primary palliative care…
Backgrounds: Many adult patients with cancer who knowthey are dying choose less intense care. High intensity careis associated with worse caregiver outcomes. Little is knownabout intensity of treatment of end-of-life care in children withcancer in…
Purpose/Objective(s): Few studies have examined the use of palliative radiation therapy (RT) in the pediatric population. This single institution study is one of the largest series reported of palliative RT practice patterns prior to and within the…
Purpose: Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with terminal cancer are a marginalized population with unique medical and psychosocial needs. AYAs commonly report challenges with their health care experiences, however, little is known about the…
Background: Empirical descriptions of a 'good death' exist for older adults with cancer, and these have served as the foundation for providing quality end of life care. In contrast, little is known about what, if anything, constitutes a 'good death'…
Background: Legacy-making (i.e., a way for patients with terminal illness to create or do something for others as a means of remembrance) is rising in popularity in palliative medicine, although only one study has examined its impact in a pediatric…
A growing evidence base highlights the negative impact of poor psychosocial care at end-of-life. Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) 15-39 years of age with cancer face unique medical and psychosocial challenges that make them especially vulnerable…
Introduction: For children with cancer, early integration of pediatric palliative care in conjunction with curative treatments is recommended. In Switzerland, pediatric palliative care is mostly provided by an interdisciplinary primary oncology team…
Background: To the authors' knowledge, end-of-life (EOL) care outcomes among adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer who are living in poverty remain poorly understood. The primary aim of the current study was to examine the effect of poverty…
Background: Efforts to improve the quality of end-of-life (EOL) care depend on better knowledge of the care that children, adolescents, and young adults with cancer receive, including high-intensity EOL (HI-EOL) care. The objective was to assess the…
Background: Despite advances in pediatric oncology care, most children that die each year from cancer report significant suffering at end-of-life. Commonly reported symptoms include pain, anxiety, and nausea. More than half of pediatric cancer…
Background: Systematic symptom assessment is not a standard of care in children with cancer. Many well-known symptom assessment tools are lengthy or difficult to integrate into a daily pediatric palliative care practice. We created a series of brief…
Objectives: Palliative radiation therapy (pRT) is often used to improve quality of life for pediatric patients. Though palliative doses are generally lower than those for cure, pRT may still introduce undesirable effects. The decision to pursue…
Background: It is difficult to perceive the preparation of a good death for children because of its social and cultural issues. Among the children with serious diseases, they can be alienated and the whole processes are done by the decision of the…
CONTEXT: Patient preferences influence end-of-life (EOL) care which patients receive. However, preferences regarding EOL care among adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer population remain unclear. OBJECTIVE(S): The objective of the study was to…
Background: Pediatric patients with cancer have many opportunities for increased primary or specialty palliative care (PC). This is particularly true for patients with solid tumors who often have higher symptom burden and worse outcomes. However, how…
Purpose: To analyse the preference of end of life care place in paediatric oncology patients, and to understand the end of life care needs and regrets among the care givers. Method(s): This was an observational qualitative study. Parents of…
