title: A focus for nursing intervention: realistic acceptance or helping illusions?
abstract: Despite having a life-threatening disease, some people decide to live every remaining moment with intensity. Although they have accepted that their deaths might be imminent, they do not dwell on the possibility. They choose life and are sustained by vivid thoughts and inspirations. What can a nurse do to nourish such thoughts? Traditional theories of grief and loss maintain that one way to adjust to advanced stages of progressive disease is to accept death and prepare for it. Is it possible that these theories are simplistic and limiting in their assumptions about the way people "work through" the stage of adjusting to loss? This article is a critical reflection of the process.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Nursing, University of Montreal, CP 6128, succursale Centre-ville, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. jose.cote@umontreal.ca
authors.forename: José K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Côté
authors.forename: Carolyn
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pepler
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000451:nursing; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D001293:Attitude to Death; D016638:Critical Illness / Q000451:nursing* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D008297:Male; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D009736:Nursing Process / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D015399:Nursing Research; D011792:Quebec; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013727:Terminal Care / Q000523:psychology / Q000592:standards