Acceptance of “Living with Cancer” among Older Patients during Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify ways in which older people, in the course of cancer treatment, accept and coped with “living with cancer”. Data were collected, using semi-structured interviews, from 24 hospitalized older patients undergoing surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Collected data were analyzed with reference to Krippendorff’s content analysis method. The results showed that acceptance of “living with cancer” among older patients in the process of treatment could be divided into four main categories：‘letting cancer take its course without resistance’, ‘still wanting to complete one’s life’, ‘realizing one’s own fragility’ and ‘being overwhelmed with anxiety and bitterness’. Older people could draw on their long life experience to accept the threat of cancer without being overwhelmed by it, reinterpreting their sense of being at the limit of life to a sense of realizing the importance of life, as they “lived with cancer”. At the same time, older patients in the course of treatment “lived with cancer”, by receiving a double blow with the combination of decline due to cancer and decline due to ageing. The past experiences of older patients with cancer were thus important resources for reflecting on life and it seems that this may be linked to an opportunity for overcoming the threat of cancer. For nurses, focusing on the life history of older cancer patients may be an important way of obtaining information that can help older cancer patients “live with cancer”.