Providing Palliative and Hospice Care to Children, Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer.
Kimberly A Pyke-Grimm, Beth Fisher, Amy Haskamp and 2 others
PMID 34175165WHAT IT FOUND
For children with cancer, early palliative care alongside treatment may improve symptom management, communication and family support, while hospice and concurrent care allow comfort-focused care without stopping treatment.
Key findings
01Palliative care is described as an early, ongoing layer of support that can be provided alongside cancer treatment, not only at end of life.
02The review reports that patients who received specialty palliative care experienced improved quality of life and symptom management, fewer procedures, earlier end-of-life discussions, fewer resuscitation events and lower rates of ICU admission and death.
03Concurrent care can allow eligible children with Medicaid or CHIP to receive hospice services while continuing disease-directed therapy, but only 10% of dying children in the United States receive hospice care.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
No original study methods are described, so the article does not grade the strength of the evidence it cites. The detailed Ryan case describes one person and cannot show that hospice or concurrent care works. Most access and insurance information is specific to the United States, including Medicaid, CHIP, hospice coverage and state variability. The review reports benefits from other studies but does not show which palliative care model, timing or team structure works best. The hospice nurse training findings come from a survey of hospice nurses in a limited geographic area and may not apply everywhere.
Declared interests
The supplied publication types list NIH extramural research support; no author conflicts of interest are stated in the article text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the Ryan case as evidence that hospice or concurrent care improves survival, quality of life or family outcomes. It is one patient's story, and the article is a narrative review without original outcome data.