Love and duty: issue of concern for nurses when newly physically disabled persons are discharged into the care of families.

Richmond (1990, P.65) writes "spinal cord injury occurs not just to the individual but to the entire family. There exists during crisis the potential for growth for individual family members and the entire family system". This article is written from both personal experience and professional interest because little appears to be written in the nursing literature about the family adjustment following discharge from hospital of a person who has a permanent disability following damage to the spinal cord.