ABSTRACT
Once a family is aware that the patient is dying, managing that family takes on new dimensions. Perhaps the most critical change is in its visiting patterns. The patient's domestic problems may follow him to his deathbed in another form: especially when visiting rules are relaxed, independent sets of family members may visit simultaneously. Staff and family members patient and worker benefit from disclosure to the family, for disclosure makes it possible for the family members to compose themselves with preparations for their relative's impending death. When a dying patient's family is brought into awareness, the members' need to keep abreast of the patient's condition is intensified; hence their demands for information increase. Bringing the family into awareness sometimes stimulates constant phone calls to the ward for information about the patient. Another kind of communication difficulty is associated with staff announcements to the family.
