Pediatric palliative care and technique: the vision of the regional pediatric palliative care resource teams (ERRSPP)

Techniques in the field of care are numerous: supply, derivation and monitoring techniques, psychocorporeal techniques, comfort techniques, know-how and interpersonal skills, techniques outside the field of medicine. The spectrum of children in palliative care is wide, including children at the end of life as well as children with a serious and complex disease progressing in chronicity. Whatever the situation, using a technique, initiating or stopping it, is constantly questioned, throughout the care of the child. The benchmarks that guide this perpetual questioning are the indications and contraindications, the feasibility, the expected benefits, the expected constraints (physical, psychological, social, material) and the potential risks (iatrogenic, ineffective, unreasonable obstinacy). Over the decades, techniques have become an integral part of the pediatric palliative care, if it aims the comfort and the quality of life for a given child and at a given time, despite the uncertainties and the potential divergent views. The issue must also be questioned, at both individual and collective levels, particularly when it is related to other concerns such as distributive justice, unfamiliar practices, or research and innovation. (C) 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.