Sickle Cell Disease

Recent years have seen a number of different investigations of the issues involved in the transition of care -- from pediatric-oriented to adult-oriented services -- for those who suffer from sickle cell disease. Although different researchers have taken a number of different approaches to the question, which I hope to survey in order to provide some report on the current state of opinion regarding transition of care, all are agreed that the current flurry of investigative interest stems ultimately from a piece of very good news: the vertiginous decline in mortality rates for children suffering from sickle cell disease. The historic response to a diagnosis of pediatric sickle cell disease was to minimize patient and parental expectations for prognosis, for the prospect of reaching adulthood would be slight indeed. Telfair Loosier (2004) note that survival rates for pediatric sickle cell disease have improved so vastly that the...
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