Hope really works miracles in hospitalized children. This study by a team at Nationwide Children's Hospital (OHIO), presented in the journal Pediatric Research, shows how a perspective, linked to a personal project, can help pediatric patients better fight the disease, recover faster and reduce the length of their hospitalization.
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The example is given of an adolescent patient, 15 years old, suffering from severe epilepsy with several seizures per day during most of her childhood. His generalized epilepsy is resistant to treatment due to genetic variation. Like many patients with such a severe disease, her quality of life is severely impacted and the patient is in clinical depression. But her vision of life has totally changed since she formed the wish to go to Paris. This wish helped her to change her perspective and to be positive, but on a more clinical level, to also reduce the number of her epileptic seizures over time.
This story told by Dr. Anup Patel, Chief of Neurology at Nationwide Children's Hospital, confirms, albeit anecdotally, that wishes or plans can significantly help hospitalized children, both psychologically and physiologically. , recovering more quickly from their illness. The author, a clinician, sought evidence to support her hypothesis that these experiences result in more positive outcomes for children and provide objective and significant clinical benefit.
2.5 times more likely to reduce the number of hospitalizations:The study carried out within the Nationwide Children's shows that whatever the wish or the project pursued by the young patient, having a small pet, going to the mountains for the first time or even meeting his favorite idol, this perspective contributes reduce the use of health care. This retrospective study compared the evolution of 496 young patients who granted a wish or not, and the associated impact on care and healthcare costs over 2 years. The analysis shows that these patients are 2.5 times more likely to reduce the number of unplanned hospitalizations and 1.9 times more likely to not have to use emergency services. Beyond the well-being of these children,
A wish or a project is a break in the disease: thus, in young hospitalized epileptic patients, making a wish and carrying it out leads to a probability of 1 to 3% of no longer having seizures at all. Admittedly, all patients are not rid of their seizures but overall all see a reduction in their symptoms. “Their quality of life improves and this has an indirect impact on their health,” comments Dr Patel. “As a result, the number of crises and the treatments are reduced”.
For the first time, this study demonstrates the impact, in the fight against the disease in pediatric patients, of the prospect and the realization of a positive project.
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