Experience at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC suggests that the better families are prepared to deal with the challenges of transplantation, the better their children’s outcomes are likely to be.
Children’s Hospital offers comprehensive services to help children and their families cope with liver transplantation and all that recovery demands. In many cases, preparing families for the challenges of transplantation begins before the child’s surgery.
Services include instruction on caring for a child while in the hospital, training for caring for the child at home, and access to social workers, psychologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists and others who can help with the physical, emotional, social, educational and even the financial challenges of liver transplantation.
Children’s also runs Camp Chihopi, a summer camp for young liver and intestine transplant patients, which in itself is evidence of the degree to which the quality of life for these children has improved.
