[Psychological approaches to chronically and incurably ill patients]

In ethical and psychological demands of health care it is constantly repeated that in particular nowadays in the area of specialized medicine the patient's individuality should be taken into account. This demand is particularly urgent in incurable and dying patients middle-aged man fears death for a number of specific psychological and social reasons. The reaction of man to his own serious disease or the perspective of death depends on the complexity of attitudes he had in relation to life, in particular when he was in good health.