This is the first comprehensive book devoted exclusively to cancer in adolescents and young adults. It compiles medical, epidemiological, biological, psychological, and emotional issues of young adults’ oncology. The emphasis is on the differences of the "same" cancer in younger and older patients. Model programs specially designed to care for patients in the age group and surveillance of long-term adverse effects are reviewed.
This book is an accessible, sensitive, and evidence-based resource for partners, parents, and other family members navigating the heartache and challenges of caring for a young adult with cancer. When a young person you love is diagnosed with cancer, the impacts on partners and parents is life-altering. In this book, Anne Katz offers her unique perspective as a counselor to help family members as their child or partner goes through diagnosis, treatment, and the years of survivorship. Interweaving clinical practice with evidence-based tips and interventions, each chapter presents the story of a young person with cancer and how the illness impacts those that love them with Dr. Katz providing gentle, targeted advice throughout. The chapters include individuals from diverse backgrounds, such as people across different ages, gender identities, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, as well as reflective questions, with topics covering treatment decision-making, how to care during treatment, letting go, and a resource section pointing readers to where they can seek help. Written by a leading voice in the field of cancer, the stories and advice provided in this book will help all families and partners apply the lessons learnt to their lived experiences. It will be also of interest to health care providers working with these families, such as clinical social workers and nurses.
A diagnosis of cancer is devastating at any age. For teenagers and young adults, it presents a unique challenge both socially and emotionally. You strive for independence, but cancer leaves you completely dependent on those around you. At an age when you want nothing but to be with your peers, isolation resulting from a compromised immune system leaves you starving for social contact. When you should be able to start setting goals for the future, you are confronted with the possibility of having no future at all. This all makes staying positive very difficult. Through her own experiences as a two-time cancer survivor, and previous teen cancer patient who faced a forty percent chance of survival, Clarissa Schilstra has learned a great deal about all of these challenges and how to cope with them. In the pages of this book, she shares those stories and strategies, in an effort to provide a guide through the emotional roller coaster that is cancer treatment and life as a cancer survivor. A foreword by Lori Wiener, PhD, DCSW, FAPOS is included.
The original inspiration for this book was George who died from osteosarcoma at the age of 23. During his illness his parents tried without success to access information on the life-stage issues that make life-threatening illness during young adulthood particularly difficult to manage. They could find no literature relating specifically to this problem and struggled throughout George's 4 years of living with cancer to cope with the additional problems faced by families in this situation. After his death they set up a research project to help other families facing these issues. This book is the outcome of that research. It is heavily based on the use of narrative material written by parents whose young adult children have been diagnosed with cancer. The book addresses issues such as sexuality and fertility, independence, the need for normality, the effect on siblings, the ownership of medical information, financial issues, the impact on the parents' partnership and the emotional consequences of the illness. It is designed to be of practical assistance both to parents and to health professionals involved with the care of young adults with cancer.
This contributed book covers all aspects concerning the clinical scenario of breast cancer in young women, providing physicians with the latest information on the topic. Young women are a special subset of patients whose care requires dedicated expertise. The book, written and edited by internationally recognized experts who have been directly involved in the international consensus guidelines for breast cancer in young women, pays particular attention to how the disease and its planned treatment can be effectively communicated to young patients. Highly informative and carefully structured, it provides both theoretical and practice-oriented insight for practitioners and professionals involved in the different phases of treatment, from diagnosis to intervention, to follow-up – without neglecting the important role played by prevention.
Identifying and Addressing the Needs of Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer is the summary of a workshop convened by the Institute of Medicine's National Cancer Policy Forum in July 2013 to facilitate discussion about gaps and challenges in caring for adolescent and young adult cancer patients and potential strategies and actions to improve the quality of their care. The workshop featured invited presentations from clinicians and other advocates working to improve the care and outcomes for the adolescent and young adult population with cancer. Cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death in adolescents and young adults. Each year nearly 70,000 people between the ages of 15 and 39 are diagnosed with cancer, approximately 8 times more than children under age 15. This population faces a variety of unique short- and long-term health and psychosocial issues, such as difficulty reentering school, the workforce, or the dating scene; problems with infertility; cardiac, pulmonary, or other treatment repercussions; and secondary malignancies. Survivors are also at increased risk for psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and suicide and may have difficulty acquiring health insurance and paying for needed care. Identifying and Addressing the Needs of Adolescents and Young Adults with Cancer discusses a variety of topics important to adolescent and young adult patients with cancer, including the ways in which cancers affecting this group differ from cancers in other age groups and what that implies about the best treatments for these cancer patients. This report identifies gaps and challenges in providing optimal care to adolescent and young adult patients with cancer and to discuss potential strategies and actions to address them.
Outlining the unique psychosocial and development issues faced by young adults affected by cancer, this text draws on qualitative data from two pilot studies conducted in the United States to illustrate how the needs of this often-overlooked population can be effectively met via group therapy in clinical settings. Drawing on 25 years of experience as a licensed clinical social worker supporting pediatric and young adult cancer patients and their families, Kurker focuses on the role of the clinician in structuring support group sessions. Chapters draw on patient perspectives to demonstrate effective application of interventions to help adolescents work through trauma associated with a diagnosis of cancer, treatment, recovery and the impacts on their development. Outcomes from these studies also include strategies for selecting support group participants, structuring group activities and securing funding. Effective Group Therapies for Young Adults Affected by Cancer will be a valuable text for oncology social workers and clinicians involved in adolescent support services. In addition, researchers and postgraduate students with an interest in the fields of social work, psychology and adolescent development will find the book of interest.
"This book is shouting out to every person who is involved with young people's cancer. I hope they listen." Macmillan Cancer Support "This is an absolute 'must' read for all those who care for young people with cancer, including the patients themselves, parents, doctors, nurses, psychologists and all of the caring professions." Professor Tim Eden, Christie NHS Trust, Manchester, UK "I particularly liked the layout of the book and the initial chapter is called 'setting the scene'. It does just that and informs the reader of services available and leads the reader into the remaining chapters about diagnosis through to sexuality and finally implication for policy and practice.I would recommend this book for everyone involved with cancer care. As a nurse I found it excellent. As a mum of two young people I found it very emotional." Jan Stevens, Nurse Coordinator, Hospice at Home "This book should be compulsory reading for all healthcare professionals who work with young people with cancer and especially for all professionals who may, at some stage, meet a solitary young person with cancer." Sue Morgan, St James's University Hospital, Leeds, UK What issues are of most concern to young adults living with cancer? How can a supportive care setting be established? How can we offer the optimum age appropriate care? This book uses original data gathered from in-depth research to present an account of what it is like to be an adolescent or young adult living with cancer. These first hand accounts contribute to the insight necessary to the provision of age appropriate quality care. The implications of these research findings for policy and practice are also related to NICE Guidance (2005). Though primarily based on a thematic analysis of interview data, the book also provides contextual and statistical information on the current incidence of cancer in young adults. Young People Living with Cancer is essential reading for health professionals engaged in the care of young adults with cancer, support workers in the health services, young adults with cancer, their families, academics and students. The text offers a contribution to policy and practice that may enhance compliance and consequently improve outcomes.
Cancer is for Old(er) People By: Brett M. Cordes and Amy Calkins Teague, Kyle Moses Recounting his experience with cancer as a 19-year-old boy, Brett Cordes shares his extraordinary journey, including all of the nitty gritty details that one may not ordinarily hear when reading about others’ battles with cancer. His childhood friend, Amy Calkins Teague, discusses Brett’s journey from her perspective, as well as the experiences from her own fight against ovarian cancer. From their diagnosis to their ultimate recovery from the disease, Brett and Amy share their story- proving that cancer does not have to define you. Another of Brett’s friends, Kyle Moses, offers his own story in describing his journey through this all-too-familiar struggle with the disease. With key pieces of advice and inspirational stories, this novel helps those not only battling cancer to keep pushing forward, but those caregivers, friends and family who have loved ones who are sick.
Since the late 1960s, the survival rate in children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer has steadily improved, with a corresponding decline in the cancer-specific death rate. Although the improvements in survival are encouraging, they have come at the cost of acute, chronic, and late adverse effects precipitated by the toxicities associated with the individual or combined use of different types of treatment (e.g., surgery, radiation, chemotherapy). In some cases, the impairments resulting from cancer and its treatment are severe enough to qualify a child for U.S. Social Security Administration disability benefits. At the request of Social Security Administration, Childhood Cancer and Functional Impacts Across the Care Continuum provides current information and findings and conclusions regarding the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of selected childhood cancers, including different types of malignant solid tumors, and the effect of those cancers on childrenâ (TM)s health and functional capacity, including the relative levels of functional limitation typically associated with the cancers and their treatment. This report also provides a summary of selected treatments currently being studied in clinical trials and identifies any limitations on the availability of these treatments, such as whether treatments are available only in certain geographic areas.
