Book dossier

Comprehensive cleft care

by Joseph E. Losee, Richard Kirschner

"Designed to meet the educational needs of families of children with clefts, this book contains chapters written in layperson language that mirror a corresponding chapter in the professional text. The book contains several useful features for families, including a glossary, a timeline for cleft care, and a condensed, lay interpretation of the Parameters of Care. Topics include fundamentals, psychosocial and educational aspects, cleft lip and palate repair, cleft palate speech and hearing, airway and breathing issues, and dental and orthodontic principles. Two parents of cleft-affected children have been recruited as co-editors to help ensure quality content"-- "This new text provides a broad discourse on the basic and clinical sciences that are essential to the understanding, diagnosis, and management of cleft lip and palate. This second edition features chapters on advocacy and social work, a reflection of the unmistakable truth that every cleft-affected individual is not simply a patient but also an integral member of a family and of society. In order to further enhance the educational value of the work to its readers, we have complemented several of the chapters with material in video format. The inclusion of new chapters reflects the necessary and inevitable progression in thought and comprehension within the discipline. While cleft-care providers have long recognized the benefits of interdisciplinary team care, there has been a significant increase in our understanding of the need to practice our art based not upon preference, but upon evidence. The measurement and honest assessment of clinical outcomes is our solemn responsibility to our patients, and it is for this reason that the text has been expanded to include a more thorough discussion of outcomes measurement and comparative evaluation. Perhaps an even more important step in our development as cleft care providers is the realization that the outcomes that deserve our greatest attention are those that truly matter most to our patients themselves and that our care nearly always represents a balance between real or perceived benefits and the costs of their achievement. Hence, we have included chapters that discuss the burden of care and the assessment of what is ultimately the most important outcome for those that we serve: their quality of life"--