Pediatric Palliative Care
Pediatric Palliative Care is frequently confused with end of life or hospice care. Actually, palliative care is a resource for any child living with a serious illness and involves support for the sick child and the entire family. The goal of pediatric palliative care is to help a child live as well as possible for as long as possible.
What is Pediatric Palliative Care?
Pediatric Palliative Care can be helpful as early as diagnosis and at any point during a child’s life with serious illness. The term “palliative care” refers to a wide-range of care that complements disease-directed care by addressing physical, emotional and spiritual needs of a child and family. Pediatric palliative care providers do not take the place of a child’s primary medical team. They work alongside a child’s family and primary treatment team and provide an extra layer of symptom management and communication support for a child and family in the home. We are the eyes and ears for the primary care team, coordinating and communicating updates on the patient’s status since they are not able to conduct visits in the home.
Lightways Pediatric Palliative Care Team works alongside your families primary treatment team to provide symptom management and communication support in the home.
Pediatric Palliative Care Treatment
Pediatric Palliative Care is delivered by a team of professionals that can follow a child and family through changes in the child’s health status over time. They can help the child and family understand, consider and choose treatment options that are in most in-line with their hopes, goals and priorities.
How Pediatric Palliative Care Supports your Family:
- Understand and give voice to a child and family’s values and care goals for their child.
- Facilitate communication and decision-making between family members and primary medical team.
- Focus attention on the child’s quality of life as defined by the child and family. This can involve getting symptoms and side effects under better control and finding ways to optimize the child’s wellness and function.
- Access to Child Life Therapy, Social Worker, Chaplain, Music and Massage Therapy.
Lightways Pediatric Care FAQs
What is pediatric palliative care?
Pediatric Palliative Care is frequently confused with end of life or hospice care. Actually, palliative care is a resource for any child living with a serious illness and involves support for the sick child and the entire family. The goal of pediatric palliative care is to help a child live as well as possible for as long as possible.
Pediatric Palliative Care can be helpful as early as diagnosis and at any point during a child’s life with serious illness. The term “Palliative Care” refers to a wide-range of care that complements disease-directed care by addressing physical, emotional and spiritual needs of a child and family. Pediatric Palliative Care providers do not take the place of a child’s primary medical team. They work alongside a child’s family and primary treatment team and provide an extra layer of symptom management and communication support for a child and family in the home.
How is Pediatric Palliative Care different from hospice care?
Pediatric Hospice Care is a way to support and care for your child when cure for your child’s disease is no longer possible, and their life expectancy will be shortened. Hospice is a bundle of services delivered by the same interdisciplinary team as an extension of palliative care, with special attention to end of life planning and care. The mission of hospice is to maximize your child’s comfort, control of symptoms and enhance their function and quality of life.
Can my child continue with their doctors and treatment plans if they are in Palliative Care or hospice?
Children in palliative care programs continue with their same doctors, clinic visits and subspecialty care. Pediatric Palliative Care Teams work in partnership with a child’s treatment team. Palliative Care Teams can help be the ‘eyes and ears’ at home for your doctors to help keep your child’s symptoms controlled and in some cases help take care of issues before they require a clinic or emergency department visit.
Children enrolled in hospice can continue to see their regular doctors, and families often choose to have their doctor or the pediatric hospice doctor be their primary doctor. In some cases, children can also continue to pursue disease treatment while in hospice. No matter what choice you make for your child, there is always close communication between the hospice team and your child’s treatment team about how your child is doing and what they need.
If my child has hospice care, won’t that mean we are ‘giving up’?
Hospice does not replace your child’s medical care. Hospice becomes an important addition to your child’s care, and can improve their comfort, mood and energy. When children feel better, they can live better. Studies show that when symptoms are controlled and patients have their physical, emotional and spiritual needs met, they tend to live longer.
PEDIATRIC CARE: Pediatric Palliative Care | Pediatric Hospice Care | Pediatric Care | Child Life Specialists