When assisting older adults and their families, the most useful family nursing conceptual skill is embracing the belief that "illness is a family affair." This illness belief summons a systemic or interactional focus specifically on relationship communication patterns. Uncovering maladaptive and distressing familial interactions, a family nurse can intervene and offer ideas for more loving and caring interactional patterns. Three brief and one detailed clinical case example, illustrating how to conceptualize interactional patterns and how to intervene, are offered. This article also presents the author's firsthand caregiving experience with its accompanying joys and pitfalls. Despite her decades of clinical practice and professional assistance to numerous elderly families, the caregiving and interactions with her father held no guarantee of being filled with consistent care and love. Although not easily applicable to one's own family, focusing on the interrelationships with the elderly and their families, the embedded interactional patterns become the crucial ingredient to facilitate more satisfying and loving relationships.
Keywords: Family Systems Nursing; elderly families; family intervention; illness suffering; interactional communication patterns; love.