Palliative Care Across the Continuum of Childhood

Palliative care should be integrated along the continuum for all children living with life-limiting illness. Many misconceptions about palliative care exist, including the misunderstanding that palliative and curative care are mutually exclusive. Many associate palliative care with hospice and do not recognize that palliative care is available and beneficial before end of life. Palliative care should be initiated at the time a family receives a life-limiting diagnosis and should continue throughout the child's life. Children may have a better quality of life and even longer life span when palliative care has an earlier initiation. In this article, we discuss these common misconceptions and describe how children and families benefit from palliative care when it is integrated along the illness continuum. In addition, we discuss how pediatricians can incorporate these principles into their practice to support their families. [.