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Reasons for admission :
Emergency admissions
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In the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) :
Seeing the patient in ICU for the first time
Suspending normal routines: visiting ICU every day
Uncertainty
Emotional impact on relatives & friends in ICU
Impact on children
Telling others
Relationships within and between families
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Sources of information in ICU
Nursing care
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Sources of support in ICU
At the bedside:
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The relatives' room and overnight accommodation:
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When someone dies :
End of life decisions
Death and bereavement:

On a general ward :
The ward environment and nursing care
Hospital discharge and rehabilitation

Life after leaving the hospital :
Supporting and caring for the ill person at home
Impact on work and finances
Attitudes to life after the hospital experience
Messages to others
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- Emotional impact on family and friends
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Support and information
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Intensive care: experiences of family & friends

People's stories

Aged 41-50

Interview 16

Interview 16

Age at Interview: 44
Sex: Female
Background: Horticulturalist, married with four children. Ethnic background/nationality: White British.

Brief outline:She cares for her 13-year-old son, who has congenital muscular dystrophy. In 2003 he had a serious chest infection and was admitted to a peadiatric ICU.

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A carer helps her son during the week and she cares for him the rest of the time, including giving him some physiotherapy and extra oxygen.
Print It knocked him back enormously. Beforehand he was a lot stronger. He's been a lot weaker since having this, he's been left with, his left lung doesn't work particularly well now. He's on oxygen overnight. Which he never had before. Every night. And he has oxygen during the day. He's certainly got worse. When he first came out of hospital he was very, very weak. We get, [the carer] comes in school days 7.30 till 8.30 in the morning. Gets him up, gets him dressed. And then she or somebody else will come back at 5 till 7 in the evening. Which, they feed him and bath him and put him into his pyjamas. And one reason we do this is because he's 13 and he still has to wear pads. And so it kind of gives him a bit of privacy. Because being 13, he needs his privacy. And I mean I do change him. I do everything for him. [My husband] doesn't as a matter of principle. You know, I mean if I'm not here, then, and he needs changing, [my husband] will do it. But as a matter of course he doesn't. And that's kind of an unwritten agreement. But he will take forty-five minutes to eat a meal.

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