The Psychological Effects Of Chemotherapy

Cancer has one of the biggest effects on the patients mental health but also the patients loved ones and friends. It is one of the hardest things to get a grip on when the doctor tells someone that they have cancer and a fifty-fifty chance of making it. "The disease can bring many changes-in what people do and how they look, in how they feel and what they value" (Dakota 4). It makes people look at the world and their lives in a different way, valuing now what they took for granted and seeing the bigger picture in every scenario. It is something that no one can actually brace, even after the doctor tells them. Through it all though, the person must remain strong and optimistic because the cancer can affect the person's moods and in return affect the outcome of the person and the chances of their making it

Pain is one of the most common and feared complications of cancer. It is exacerbated by stress, anxiety, fatigue, and malaise which accompany advanced cancer. Pain is generally absent in the early stages of cancer, but it is a significant factor as the illness progresses to advanced stages. Cancer-associated pain can arise from a variety of direct and indirect mechanisms including direct pressure, obstruction, and invasion of a sensitive structure, stretching of visceral surfaces, tissue destruction, infection, and inflammation (McCance 2010). Pain is generally accepted as whatever the patient says it is, wherever the patient says it is. Treatment of pain and its associated symptoms is a primary responsibility of the healthcare team. Treatment modalities for pain include the use of opioid analgesics, patient-controlled analgesia, psychological interventions, and preventing recurrence of pain. Reinforcing the reporting of pain by the patient is important, as is a respect for the social and cultural differences with respect to pain perception.

From personal experience, I have witnessed several family members undergo chemotherapy. Often their side effects of the treatment were worse than the disease itself. Effects, varying form person-to-person, ranged from nausea and

Patient reports the following emotional complains: feeling depressed, anhedonia, sadness, anxiety, worry, irritability, withdrawn, isolation, feeling hopeless, helpless and lost interest in most activities. She reports having daily crying spells and ongoing fear for her family’s ability to cope and adjust to all the traumatic events. She reports experiencing traumatic physical and emotional life threatening incidents in

Unfortunately 30% of people in the US will develop cancer at some point, and two-thirds of those will eventually succumb as a result. In dealing with cancer, many patients have symptoms from the disease along with side effects of the medications that are extremely debilitating.

The study compared factors of gender, trait anxiety, perceived treatment intensity, life-threat and progress towards life goals. The comparison between groups were found to show no noticeable differences in predisposition factors based on trauma-related issues or psychosocial functioning. However, evidence from the study revealed that young adult females with lower education levels and pre-existing mental disorders are more likely to report symptoms of posttraumatic stress. A second strong correlation the Rourke et al. (2007) study found was general beliefs about the cancer treatment are more indicative of developing PTSD than the treatment protocol, demographics or other predisposing factors. The Hobbie (2000) and Kazak (1997), like Rourke et al.’s (2007) study found a correlation between subjective appraisal of the level of threat perceived in the precipitating cancer event and late effect developments of PTSD. Other researchers have found only marginal late effect symptomology of stress in the young adult populations who have survived childhood cancer. Gerhardt et al. (2007) compared survivors to a group of peers who had not faced a life-threatening illness or traumatic event and found no difference in the two groups’ reports of

Common ways of managing stress during chemotherapy include developing a supportive social network, talk therapy, yoga, exersise and meditation. Sometimes medications may be needed to manage depression. The American Cancer Society has many free programs to help with this as well,including free make up kits and professional training on

Cancer-Related Fatigue (CRF) is the most common and debilitating symptoms in cancer patients, with frequency range from 60 to 90% in cancer patients (Yennurajalingam, 2014). CRF is defined as “distressing, persistent, and subjective sense of physical, emotional, and/or cognitive tiredness or exhaustion related to cancer, or cancer treatment that is not proportional to recent activity and interferes with usual function” (Yennurajalingam, 2014). Fatigue may be an isolated problem or a part of group of symptoms, such as pain, depression, decrease appetite, and sleep disturbance (www.ons.org, 2016).

80% to 100% of individuals with cancer state they suffer with fatigue (Oncology Nursing Society, 2016).

While the word chemotherapy means any drug used to treat all kinds of ailment, it has become de facto treatment associated with cancer. Often shortened as “chemo”, this word seems to strike fear into the hearts of cancer patients. But the truth is this, chemotherapy is crucial to the health of a cancer patient. Chemotherapy helps to prevent the spread of cancer to other parts of the body; surgery and radiation are area specific. To be more specific, they can kill cancer cells that have metastasized (spread to other areas) from where initial diagnosis was made.

Cancer has been devastating to humans killing beloved people and tearing peoples’ families apart. A disease that is caused by uncontrolled growth of cells in part of a human’s body which ends up controlling the person’s life practically pulling the soul out of the patient. Though there is no cure yet medicine has advanced enough to have developed a type of medicine that is supposed to kill these uncontrolled cells. This type of savage medicine is known as chemotherapy which is know for its harsh and devastating side effects which often times makes the patient worse than when they started. Chemotherapy must be stopped being practiced due to its unreliable and harsh ways this kind of medicine should avoided and research should be put into

Information and education about cancer are the support services most frequently requested by their patients (Matthews et al., 2004). ). Further, anxiety decreases satisfaction when information are provided. Anxiety and other side effects of the illness and its treatment, such as pain, need to be controlled if information is to be useful (Chapman and Rush, 2003). However, evidence indicates that chemotherapy psychological side effects can be controlled if the patients meet information

Two studies conducted in 2012 and 2015 to find out the relation between chemotherapy and cognitive function. Concluded that the cognitive dysfunction noted in the patient not only because of the chemo, but also because of it always supported by other factors. Such as: cognitive reserve, genetic factors, depression /anxiety and endocrine therapy.(Tim A. Ahles, James C. Root, and Elizabeth

When a person receive chemotherapy their body feels much pain and they start to feel so weak also they feel in depression and have self-esteem problem due their hair falls out and they lose weight , this consequences happen because when they apply drugs not only kill the cancer cells also it kills the health ones and because the drugs can’t make a big change and penetrate very well on the tumor the chemotherapy It must be repeated many times causing all this health problems.

Intro: At some time in your life you have to think about how you would feel if you were suffering from cancer and you went through chemotherapy and you turn to sicker than you were before. Welcome ladies and gentlemen, I am here to talk about chemotherapy and why it is a negative impact on cancer. Some people say that chemotherapy is a get help but I say it is just a waste of money. We should not be treated like this. There are many people coming out of chemotherapy that has massive side effects like feeling down and depressed. Remembering these are just some of the side effect that many adult and children go through after surgery.