Supporting children’s development during extended hospitalisation for bladder exstrophy

Abstract

The extended hospitalisation and immobilisation of bladder exstrophy patients following primary bladder closure is largely known and accepted as the gold standard of care. Children who undergo this procedure spend an average of four to six weeks immobilised in the hospital, recovering. During this period, it is important to support the child in meeting age-appropriate cognitive, emotional, and developmental milestones. These developmental milestones for social and emotional development were first defined by psychologists Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget, who all had slightly different theories of development and beliefs about when and how a child develops. Especially in the past few decades, these theories of development have been combined and utilised to measure the developmental growth of children, emotionally and cognitively, from infancy through adolescence.