Abstract
The aim of this study was to identify the optimum care for seriously handicapped children who were unable to breathe for themselves and did not respond to anything. This study used an ethnonursing research method, under which seven nurses were chosen as key informants and fourteen were chosen as general informants. Dates were recorded from interviews and from participating in observation. As the results of the analysis, five sub themes and one main theme were extracted. The main theme was that the nurses regarded any minute change in the children and the sound of the monitor's alarm as'the child's voice,'and built up each child's personality not as'a child that once lived'but as'a living child.'
As the result, caring for totally nonresponsive seriously handicapped children on respiratory support had two elements that were based on observations of minute changes in the children and the monitor alarm, bringing together emotion and intention, which is how the nurses build up these children's personality.
The findings suggest the importance to nurses working with such children of sharing information on their patients and of expressing their nursing experience in words.
