Myelodysplasia: Management and treatment

Abstract

Summary The objectives of parents and child health care professionals should be to help children to grow into happy, well-adjusted adults. To do so, it is important to set realistic goalds and to communicate realistic socialization and learning objectives to patients, their families and teachers. Selection of infants for life-sustaining procedures is only the beninning of a complicated life. The world condemned Pfaunmeller for carrying out Germany's eugenic plan by sedating and starving to death small, defective children. 25 Our laws explicitly prohibit euthanasia, whether by neglect or act of commission or omission. 53 Treatment for the child with myelodysplasia, as for any child, should be considered only from the viewpoint of what is best for the child. The family must be prepared to alter its life-style and provide the child with the strengths and care necessary to become independent, or relin-quish the child-rearing responsibilities to society. Adequate adjustment to adult life by the severely congenitally malformed should provide the child health care specialist with a stimulus to improve the health and development of all individuals in the significantly increasing population of persons born with myelodysplasia.