Dying with Comfort: Family Illness Narratives and Early Palliative Care (Health Communication)

This remarkable work reveals and follows the intimate stories of several families facing terminal illness with and without palliative care. Examining their expereinces of diagnosis and care from the prism of palliative care communication, the authors use narrative description to identify the expereinces of isolated, rescued, and comforted illness in an effort to reveal the deficits in our current communication and literacy practices between patient, family and clinician. With an author team comprised of three health communication scholars and one physcian certified in geriatrics and palliative medicine, this volume integrates the medical literature on palliative care with that of family and health communication researchers who advocate a simultaneous care model; one that includes curative as well as comfort care upon the diagnosis of serious, chronic or terminal illness.