Palliative Care

Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care

The Stanford Medicine Children’s Health Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care Program promotes healing, comfort, and the best possible quality of life for your child and your family.

The Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care Program, also called QoLA, cares for children living with serious illnesses and their families both physically and emotionally. The team offers palliative care to patients of any age and at any stage of serious illness. They help treat patients’ underlying illnesses while trying to give them the best possible quality of life. They will work closely with you to understand what is most important to your family. The team of doctors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, and other clinicians focus on the following:

Physical Care

• Managing pain and other symptoms. We do this using both common medicine-based therapies and alternative therapies such as acupressure.

Psychosocial Care

• Supporting each family’s mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.
• Helping families find the resources they need at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and in their community.

Quality of Life Care

• Creating specific care plans for each of our patients that focus on improving quality of life and feeling peace.

We will work with your care team in the following ways:

• Partnering with child life specialists who offer education, support, and resources on the best ways to communicate with patients and their siblings.
• Supporting treatment goals and decisions that follow each family’s values, traditions, and culture.
• Understanding and advocating for what is most important to each family’s hopes
  and values.

Helpful questions to ask while you make medical decisions:

• What does quality of life mean for your family?
• How will this treatment affect your quality of life?
• If you choose not to go forward with this treatment, how will that affect your quality of life?
• How will this treatment change your child’s medical prognosis?
• What will it be like for your family to go through this treatment?
• Is this treatment something that will improve the way your child feels?
• Are there other options you should consider?

Quality of Life

Quality of life is really about what is most important when you think about living life as well as possible. It is different for each family, and that is OK. It is important for each family to decide what the best quality of life means to them so that we can care for your child and your family in a way that is most comfortable for you. For some, quality of life means going to school or eating their favorite foods. For others, it may mean being comfortable at home, being able to enjoy the sunshine, or being as pain-free as possible to enjoy fun activities. We want to support whatever goals will give your family the best quality of life.

Contact Us

We can start working with your child as soon as he or she is admitted to the hospital.
We are available Monday through Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
Email: QoLa@stanfordchildrens.org
For emergency needs, please call 911 or your primary doctor.