What does it mean? Making sense of the hospital experience

The process by which people attempt to make sense of an event, such as hospitalization, is referred to as "meaning making" by Kegan. Because the ways in which the elderly define their feelings generated by illness and hospitalization influence their behavioral responses, understanding this interpretation increases the predictions that can be made about their behaviors. Interventions aim at helping clients integrate their experience of illness to form a new self. The nurse acts as the matrix from which patients explore the meaning of illness and hospitalization.