ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how nurses meet the needs of two mutually exclusive groups of patients: terminally ill patients in the last stages of illness and acutely ill patients expected to recover. An acutely ill patient is defined as an individual with an acute or chronic illness, regardless of the nature or severity of the illness. In terminal care, death is viewed as a natural termination of life and accepted as such. The focus of terminal care is the quality of remaining life. Nursing can be viewed as subculture with distinct norms, role patterns, and ideologies. Registered nurses share similar motivational patterns, nursing philosophies, and personal values and attitudes toward life and death. Acute care, while certainly supporting a multidimensional approach to care, has its major emphasis on the physical care needed to maintain and support life and to prevent death. Family involvement in hospitals is ordinarily peripheral, with the individual patient being the focus of care.
