ISN-IPNA Webinar: Making Life Better – Importance of Palliative Care in Pediatric Nephrology

Children with serious life-limiting kidney disease and their families encounter significant burdens associated with their illness and its treatments including reduced quality of life, substantial symptom burden, and diminished lifespan, placing them at risk for considerable suffering.  Pediatric nephrologists often serve as a medical home and partner in holistic care for these children and their families and have an ethical duty to address these burdens.  Integrating principles of pediatric palliative care (PPC) within nephrology care offers a way for nephrologists to address these challenges.  PPC is a needs-based approach to care focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness to improve the quality of life for the child and their family. The benefits of PPC for children with other chronic diseases and adults with kidney disease are well described. To realize these benefits for children with CKD and their families, it is imperative to examine their physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs and continue to intentionally incorporate and expand PPC principles within pediatric nephrology.

Learning objectives:

- Define pediatric palliative care.
- Evaluate the ethical arguments for integration of palliative care principles into pediatric nephrology practice.
- Recognize a shared duty to provide palliative care among pediatric nephrologists globally to promote child and family flourishing.
- Identify ways that palliative care principles currently underlie pediatric nephrology care, methods to bolster these aspects, and opportunities for expansion of palliative care within pediatric nephrology.