Product reviews for Coping

This book is a practice-based guide for all who have to live with life-threatening diseases and for those who care for them. It covers a wide range of topics, such as nutrition, meditation and supportive group therapies, and offers a varietv of alternative strategies, some of which are research-based, for alleviating the symptoms of serious illness and reducing the isolation which such illnesses often impose. Most importantly it argues for an holistic approach: psychological, spiritual and emotional dimensions have a major part to play in medical and nursing management and this fact is often unacknowledged.

Battino also suggests that the patient or client takes a more active role in the decisions that affect his or her own well-being; you do have the right to ask questions, complain, say no, and clinicians need to recognize this. This is, on the whole, a compassionate and useful book which many nurses, particularlv those involved in palliative care, would benefit from reading. There is a cultural problem though. On a factual level the contact numbers and addresses are all American, and a British appendix would have been useful. Nonetheless, this is a valuable contribution to a difficult field.