Recipients

While cancer can strike at any age, it is mainly a disease of the elderly. Because life expectancy is increasing, and more elderly people are developing cancer, there is a growing need for health care providers to better understand the ways aging patients make sense of their experience. How patients talk about their illness – particularly the metaphors they use – reveals a lot about how they’re feeling about their body, the cancer, treatment and healing, and life and death. By studying a large number of narratives of cancer patients, and doing focus group interviews with older patients, Dr. Ulrich Teucher will identify the most commonly used metaphors and their meanings. Knowing what clues or signals to listen for should enable health professionals and caregivers to improve the quality of care they deliver to cancer patients.

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