Pediatric Palliative Care: Current Concepts in Drug Therapy
Posted by Dr. Julia Harder
While the elderly constitute the vast majority of patients requiring hospice and palliative care, approximately 50,000 infants, children and adolescents die annually in the United States. Of these, epidemiologic studies estimate that 15,000 might benefit from palliative care. In addition, the
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization has estimated that palliative care would be an appropriate model of care for approximately 1.5 to 2 million children in the United States living with serious medical conditions. As the medical community has become more aware of this need, pediatric palliative care has received increasing attention as an emerging sub-specialty of palliative care focusing on achieving the best possible quality of life for children with life-threatening conditions and their families.
This article is the first in a series of three articles focusing on pediatric palliative care, and will introduce the topic by comparing palliative care of children to that of adults, reviewing pediatric pharmacokinetics, and giving general guidelines for pediatric medication administration. Subsequent articles will focus in more detail on pain management and the management of other symptoms commonly experienced by children at the end of life.
Photo Credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/spigoo/ / CC BY 2.0