Supportive and Palliative Care in Cancer: an Introduction

Content: Front Cover
 Contents
 About the authors
 Introduction
 Acknowledgements
 Section 1: Cancer
 What is cancer?
 What causes cancer?
 Types of cancer
 Detecting cancer
 Cancer diagnosis and monitoring
 Section 2: Cancer treatments
 How is cancer treatment chosen?
 Surgery
 Radiotherapy: overview
 Radiotherapy: side effects
 Chemotherapy: overview
 Chemotherapy: side effects
 Hormone therapy
 Section 3: Supportive and palliative care
 What is palliative care?
 Principles of palliative care
 Palliative care: who and when?
 Section 4: Cancer pain
 What is pain?
 What sorts of pain are there? When a patient is in pain, what should I do?Drugs used to treat pain
 Isn't morphine dangerous?
 What do I do if the pain is getting worse?
 Section 5: Symptoms
 How can I help a patient who is constipated?
 How can I help a patient who is nauseated or vomiting?
 How can I help a breathless patient?
 How can I help a patient with fatigue and weakness?
 What can I do when a patient does not want to eat or drink?
 Maintaining an environment for eating
 How can I help a patient with mouth problems?
 Section 6: Communication
 Why is communication so important? What can I do to relieve a person's anxiety?How do I answer a difficult question?
 What about breaking bad or difficult news?
 How can I help an angry person?
 How can I help a withdrawn patient?
 How can I help a confused patient?
 Do children understand what is going on?
 How does illness affect how we see ourselves?
 Identifying distress when communication is poor
 Section 7: Dying and bereavement
 What is loss and grief?
 How can I support the patient, partner and relative?
 How do I help with a dying patient's distress?
 What do I do when a patient dies? Death of a patient's friend or relativeSupporting staff after a patient has died
 Complicated grief
 Section 8: Spirituality and equality
 Fostering hope
 What is spirituality?
 How can I help someone with a different faith to mine?
 How can I avoid discrimination?
 Glossary
 Back Cover.