ABSTRACT
As increasing numbers of children survive treatment for life-threatening diseases, we need to consider the physical, psychological, and social effects on these children and on their families – who live under the shadow of the possible return of the illness. The chapter describes some physical side-effects to be borne in mind, as a background to the psychological effects of bone-marrow transplantation (BMT). Although there are inevitably major psychological effects of BMT, there appears to be a lack of systematic studies on those effects. A pilot study has been undertaken by Pot-Mees and Zeitlin in London, as a preliminary to a fuller three-year study on the psychosocial effects of BMT. Siblings of children with life-threatening illnesses show more disturbance than the actual patient in some studies. The obvious problem is that the siblings can be easily overlooked while the ill child receives all the attention: both as the focus of anxiety, possibly, being the one who is over-indulged.
