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(Pediatrics in Review. 2007;28:e46-e56.)
© 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics

Pediatric Palliative Care

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

	Introduction

 
For those of us who grew up in medicine a generation ago, the focus of training often was more about diseases than about children. The primary objectives were to fix problems and make diseases go away. Since that time, the explosive increase in our understanding of diseases, the dazzling imaging studies designed to track illnesses, and the remarkable array of sophisticated medications to treat diseases have only served to fuel this approach to care. On the whole, this progression has been beneficial; the cure rate for childhood cancer, virtually incurable in 1960, now approaches 80%. Cystic fibrosis, once a disease confined to children, is now a disease of adults because affected children so often survive into adulthood. Infection, once a major cause of mortality, now is a rare cause of death in children. Sometimes, however, there are limits to what technology can do, and despite our best efforts and best technology, patients slip from our grasp. As this happens, a different kind of care is required–care that targets not the disease, but rather the comfort and well-being of the child.

Care that focuses on the comfort and well-being of the child and family is the essence of pediatric palliative care. It is not a new concept in pediatrics. Pediatricians always have been responsive to the needs of children and their families throughout the course of a child's illness. However, the management of the dying child or the child who is experiencing intractable pain can be daunting, even for the most experienced pediatrician. The emergence of pediatric palliative care as a subspecialty has given birth to a cadre of pediatricians who have expertise in this difficult realm and can assist other health-care practitioners in the care of these very ill children.

The overall goal of this review is to provide the . . . [Full Text of this Article]