Palliative care of children with muscular dystophy and nursery

6^th World Nursing and Healthcare Conference

August 15-17, 2016 London, UK

Meryem Atak and Nurcan Ozyaz�±c�±oglu

Uludag University, Turkey

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Nurs Care

Abstract :

Palliative care is defined as an approach which has a purpose to improve the life quality of patient and patients� relatives and to eradicate problems resulted from the disease itself or treatment ways. Palliative care in children is a holistic approach which includes physical, emotional, social aspects. High rates of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular and neuromuscular diseases, and long term care as a need of those diseases increase the need of palliative care. Muscular dystrophy which is a neuromuscular disease, is characterized with muscular tissue involvement primarily. In average, 20 different types of dystrophies are reported. In this disease, muscle weakness spreads starting from lower extremities to upper extremities, atrophies, lordosis increase in some muscle groups and effort difficulty are important attention points. Besides those, in early term, patients could end up death as a result of heart involvement, upper respiratory infections and nutritional deficiency. Many muscular dystrophies present progressive and life quality limitative clinical pictures. In children with muscular dystrophy, palliative care focuses on relief or eradication of symptoms like pain, exhaustion, nausea-vomiting, anxiety, constipation, lack of appetite and depression. In order to have an effective palliative care on children with muscular dystrophy, nurses should focus on the needs of patient and patient�s relatives with a multidisciplinary approach. Pediatric palliative care nurse should have effective communication skills, should listen the patient carefully and should respect the information and decisions of patient and patient�s relatives.

Biography :

Meryem Atak is a MSc student at the Uludag University. She has been working as a nurse in the Uludag University

Email: meryematak-@hotmail.com