Time toxicity and shared decision-making in cerebral palsy

Clinicians and families regularly enter into a process of shared decision-making. Seldom, if ever, however, is the critical question of time usage, or, more specifically, time-related burdens, accounted for when establishing goals and outcome measures. Time-related burdens are not included, for instance, as an outcome measure in cerebral palsy research-something which may have profound effects about which we are unaware. By contrast, in the field of oncology, time-related burdens, or, more technically, what has been termed time toxicity, has been increasingly studied. Building on that work, we seek to apply the concept of time toxicity to people with disabilities who interface with healthcare at great frequency.