The Young Adult Ignored Cancer Patients

This is one of my pet peeves. Children with cancer have their mature, sane parents advocating for them. Adults with cancer can advocate for themselves.The young adults - 15 to 30s - often don ' t find the same support or resources. First they are still trying to figure out who they are and what they will do with their life. Second, they are learning to be independent and should be focusing on their education and careers, not going to chemotherapy. There is hope now that online resources can help fill the gaps for the patients and maybe for the doctors as well." In addition, they will probably go on to live long lives and the harsh realities of their cancer treatment can leave them fundamentally changed forever. Issues such as infertility, cardiac damage, or even damaged blood vessels from infusions can further complicate their lives forever.Teen and young adult cancer patients may live a long time, so it ' s " important to pay more attention to the quality of their survival -- and not just to their survival, " Grundy says.In other words, long-term side effects from their treatments, such as infertility, need to be avoided if possible or, when unavoidable, must be managed. A weaker heart caused by chemotherapy is not the same for an elderly adult who has only a decade left to live as it might be for someone with decades to go.According to Grundy, the inspiration for singling out this demographic for special care can be found in a graph of US data from the 1980s and 1990s, show...
Source: Caroline's Breast Cancer Blog - Category: Cancer & Oncology Tags: cancer bonds cancer treatment side effects young cancer patients Source Type: blogs