To contemplate understanding how a patient who is facing death feels may seem an almost impossible task. But some emotions and fears are common experiences, and there are aspects of life that are considered important by most of us:
- Work
- Finance
- Leisure and fun
- Relationships and family
- Prior experience of illness
- Roles and status
- Meaning of life and faith
It is how each patient views and copes with each of these components when facing the end of their life that drives their emotions and subsequent behaviour.
Patients who are terminally ill, facing death, can experience a psychological response similar to that which occurs in bereavement. Kubler-Ross (1970) describes five stages of dying. People may experience these stages in sequence, or may oscillate backwards and forwards between the stages:
- Denial: The refusal to believe the truth of what is happening.
- Anger: ‘Why me?’ This can be
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