When life-threatening illness is made to seem taboo, it creates difficulties in communication and hampers social support.
Life-threatening illness is costly, personally as well as socially and spiritually.
The adaptive response to losses associated with life-threatening illness changes as circumstances change.
The response to illness is shaped by personality, family patterns, and social environment.
Four primary dimensions in coping with life-threatening illness are physical, psychological, social, and spiritual.
The awareness contexts relative to dying patients, families, and caregivers include closed awareness, suspected awareness, mutual pretense, and open awareness.
The manner in which individuals cope with life-threatening illness is described in terms of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's pioneering stage-based approach as well as more recent task-oriented, phase-oriented, and pattern-oriented approaches.
Maintaining coping potency in the face of life-threatening illness requires access to both inner and external resources.
The options for treatment of serious illness vary according to the illness and ongoing developments in medical knowledge; withholding or discontinuing treatment may also be an option.
Alternative therapies encompass adjunctive or complementary therapies, as well as unorthodox therapies.
Pain management is an essential component of a comprehensive treatment plan.
Studies of the dying trajectory distinguish two main types: (1) a lingering trajectory whereby death takes place gradually and over an extended period of time, and (2) a quick trajectory whereby death is the outcome of an acute medical crisis.
The social role of a dying patient differs between cultural groups and among individuals and families.
Being with someone who is dying is often a precious and intimate experience.
