Social impacts of terminal illness
What?
• Social impact
– Social consequences for the individual
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Loss of normal activities
Pre-death grief
Guilt
Burden on family and friends
‘Getting your affairs in order’
– Consequences for society
• Lost production
• Cost of healthcare
• Short and long term effect on family and friends,
especially children
• Representation in the media
• Guilt
– Parents: leaving children, losing children
– Children: It’s my fault?
– Partners: Helplessness
• Grief
– The tragic loss of normality
– Welcome to Holland
• Isolation
– What do you say?
– How do you have a normal social relationship?
• The Stuff
– Treatment, finances, funeral, ...
The Awfulness
Guilt
Grief
“Why don’t you just die and
get it over with?”
(Jane Turner lecture)
Welcome to Holland
(Not about terminal illness)
Practicalities
Normal?
“It’s not about the years in your life, it’s about the life
in your years”
Links
• A mother’s journey
• Give sorrow words – cancer and communication
• Ipswich hospice