In this sensitive and compassionate look at terminally ill and disabled children, professionals from the medical community examine the stresses faced by their parents and siblings. They address the crucial element of communication--within a family and between health care providers and family members--in dealing with a child’s serious illness. Ethical decision making, learning to recognize the child’s suffering, and talking to children about death are honestly and clearly discussed. Experts offer direct interventions to help family members through the grieving process once a child has died.

    Contents I. Loss of a Body Part
    • Traumatic Amputation in Childhood: Functional and Psychosocial Aspects
    • Emotional Reactions to the Loss of a Body Part
    • Reaction of Children and Adolescents to Amputation
    • Amputation and the Reconstruction of Congenital Lesions
    • II. Loss of a Perfect Child
    • Loss of the “Perfect” Child and Ethical Decision Making: Miguel’s Story
    • III. Chronic Loss and Disability
    • Seeking Significance
    • Pediatric Orthopedics: Dealing With Loss and Chronic Sorrow
    • The Impact of the Disabled Child on the Family
    • Some Aspects of Psychosocial Sequelae to Treatment of Scoliosis in Adolescent Girls
    • IV. Dealing With Life-Threatening Disease
    • Care of the Dying Adolescent and the Bereaved Family
    • Depression, Denial, and Withdrawal in Mothers of Seriously Ill Children and Adolescents
    • Suffering by Children: Some Observations of Brave Children and Their Families at a Children’s Hospital
    • The Needs of Sarcoma Patients From Diagnosis Through Follow-Up
    • Treatment of Fractures in Children With Malignancies
    • Advantage of Early Spinal Stabilization and Fusion in Patients With Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy
    • Psychosocial Aspects of Chemotherapy
    • The Ultimate Loss: The Dying Child
    • V. Bereavement
    • Communication Among Children, Parents, and Funeral Directors
    • Parental Grief Over the Death of a Child

    Biography

    Harold M. Dick, David Price Roye, Jr., Penelope R. Buschman, Austin H. Kutscher, Boris Rubinstein, and Francis K. Forstenzer Editors