ABSTRACT
Palliative care practitioners operate on the principle of caring for the family as a unit during a terminal illness, but they often struggle with how to put it into practice. To be effective, the practitioner needs an accurate understanding of how the family normally functions as this profoundly influences how families experience the transition of fading away. How families interact according to the eight dimensions contributes to their success or difficulty: integrating the past, dealing with feelings, solving problems, utilizing resources, considering others, portraying family identity, fulfilling roles, and tolerating differences. These dimensions occur along a continuum of functionality so that family interactions tend to vary along the continuum rather than being positive or negative, good or bad. The eight dimensions of family functioning and examples of the range of behaviors evident in each dimension are summarized in a table.
