Author Description

A study based on detailed conversations with nine terminally ill people and their caretakers, focusing on how participants lived their daily lives, understood their illnesses, coped with pain and other symptoms, and searched for meaning or spiritual growth in the last months of life. The authors believe that informal caregiving by relatives and close friends is an enormous and often invisible resource that deserves close public attention. They identify how families, professionals and communities can respond to challenges of terminal illness such as palliative care, quality of life, financial hardship, grief, and communications with medical personnel. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)