ABSTRACT
One of the most useful advances in the understanding of families over the past thirty years has been the increasing awareness that a family is more than a collection of individuals. The qualities and needs of individual family members, such as the person who is dying or the partner of a terminally-ill patient, are of course important. The quality of family relationships very much influences the family's response to a life-threatening illness. Vachon notes that "illness can strengthen these relationships and/or cause their frailties to surface in unexpected ways". All family relationships are important and the anticipated loss of the relationship with the dying person will have a major influence on family members. The organization of roles within the family will also affect its response to a member's dying. The physical deterioration, treatment side effects and loss of functioning in the dying person can be very distressing to the family.
