Palliative Care of Children: Importance, Benefits and Approaches

This article discusses the importance, benefits and approaches of palliative care for children with life-shortening illnesses. It covers the non-curative treatment, psycho-social support, symptom management and more.

Running head: BIO TEST ASSIGNMENT 1
Bio Test Assignment
Name
Institution

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Bio Test Assignment
Part 1: MCQs
Q1 Solution:
Option A – Transduction.
Q2 Solution:
Solution A - Be higher.
Q3 Solution:
Option B - The detection of DNA fragments on membranes by a radioactive DNA probe.
Q4 Solution:
Option A - Catalyzes the conversion of O2- to H2O2 and O2.
Q5 Solution:
Option A – A cation exchange matrix.
Q6 Solution:
Option C – RNAi.
Q7 Solution:
Option A - Defective chloride channel.
Q8 Solution:
Option C - In active transport, energy is consumed to move molecules against a concentration
gradient.
Q9 Solution:
Option A - Km increases, V max constant.
Q10 Solution:
Option D - Hydrolyze GTP returning the G protein to a pre-stimulated level of activity.

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Part 2: Essay
Palliative Care of Children
Introduction
Palliative care is a specialized medical approach offered to patients suffering from
terminal sicknesses and centers on providing relief to stress and suffering associated with the
illness. Essentially, the treatment is aimed at improving the patient’s life quality as well as their
families by identifying and preventing aspects of suffering (Ferrell et al., 2007). Palliative
programs require a combined effort from designated primary care physicians, hospital staff, and
health professionals. The non-curative treatment applies across several settings such as nursing
facilities, at home and community care programs, and offers psycho-social support and symptom
management. Nevertheless, the degree of palliative care will depend on the stage of the child’s
life and the type of sickness.
Palliative care varies across different lifespan categories since each subset has unique
characteristics subject to the life-threatening ailment. The relief systems should not be ignored
once issued since evidence from these interventions particularly for outpatients, indicate that the
services improve caregiver and patient perspectives on care (Dy, Apostol, Martinez & Aslakson,
2013). There are several reasons why palliative care should be administered to patients and their
families. First, the medical interventions offer the children a safe way to deal with distress by
offering spiritual support and may involve a broad range of medication practices (Strang, Strang,
Hutborn & Arner, 2004). Most psychological stresses include worries about family, feeling like
you are weighing them down and the possible future outcomes. Thus, interventions often involve
counselors, mental experts, and spiritual support from religious institutions.

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Secondly, palliative care helps identify physical pain and eventually, patients get
comfortable and can talk about their psychosocial pain (Kelley & Morrison, 2015). The
medications ensure the patient is not at risk of developing further complications. Similarly,
caregivers can listen to the opinions of patients which fosters a deep patient-family
understanding on the nature of the illness, confronting the family for expected death as well as
the dying process. Accordingly, caregivers are able to conduct a psychosocial assessment whose
findings help establish adjustment. Statistical data indicates that there is a significant number of
children suffering from life-limiting and life-threatening conditions. According to Fraser et al.
(2012), at least forty-nine thousand children in the UK require palliative care services. Notably,
caregivers should pay detailed attention to children since their medical situations tend to be
variable.
Children’s palliative care is more sensitive, and constant from diagnosis, their life and
eventually death. Since curative medication is not an option, a total care approach strives to
improve the child’s life quality by addressing spiritual, emotional and physical concerns.
Chambers (2009) posits that supporting the child and the family comprises of managing
conditions leading to suffering, end of life care and supporting the deceased. The nature of the
illness will dictate when palliative care will be introduced. The child’s family directs the
caregivers on their preferred medication based on the degree of ailment, though palliative
treatment has to be followed as per prescriptions. On the other hand, it is important to note that
life-shortening sicknesses result to a significant decline in the child’s health which ultimately
leads to increased dependency on caregivers and parents (Widdas, McNamara, Edwards &
Woodhead, 2013).

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Conclusion
Palliative care is a specialized medical approach of handling patients with life-
shortening illnesses and plays the main role in improving the lifestyle of patients and their
families. The non-curative treatment requires the input of key participants like the caregivers and
hospital staff. Accordingly, the interventions can be provided at several levels though caregivers
should pay extra attention to children. Some of the reasons for palliative care include improving
caregiver and patient perspectives on care, providing support to psychosocial distress and
physical pain. Palliative medication in children requires extra attention, and treatment will
depend on the nature of the illness.

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References
Chambers, L. (2009). A Guide to the Development of Children's Palliative Care Services (2nd
ed.). Bristol: ACT.
Dy, S., Apostol, C., Martinez, K., & Aslakson, R. (2013). Continuity, Coordination, and
Transitions of Care for Patients with Serious and Advanced Illness: A Systematic Review of
Interventions. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 16(4), 436-445. doi: 10.1089/jpm.2012.0317
Ferrell, B., Connor, S., Cordes, A., Dahlin, C., Fine, P., & Hutton, N. et al. (2007). The National
Agenda for Quality Palliative Care: The National Consensus Project and the National
Quality Forum. Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 33(6), 737-744. doi:
10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2007.02.024
Fraser, L., Miller, M., Hain, R., Norman, P., Aldridge, J., McKinney, P., & Parslow, R. (2012).
Rising National Prevalence of Life-Limiting Conditions in Children in
England. Pediatrics, 129(4), e923-e929. doi: 10.1542/peds.2011-2846
Kelley, A., & Morrison, R. (2015). Palliative Care for the Seriously Ill. New England Journal of
Medicine, 373(8), 747-755. doi: 10.1056/nejmra1404684
Strang, P., Strang, S., Hultborn, R., & Arnér, S. (2004). Existential Pain—An Entity, a
Provocation, or a Challenge? Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 27(3), 241-250.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2003.07.003
Widdas, D., McNamara, K., Edwards, F., & Woodhead, S. (2013). A Core Care Pathway for
Children with Life-Limiting and Life-Threatening Conditions (3rd ed.). Together for Short
Lives.