Allison J. Applebaum - Böcker

Informal caregivers - family members, friends, and other loved ones - are an essential, uncompensated and significantly burdened extension of the healthcare team. Rapid advances in cancer care, including new drugs and immunotherapies and more sophisticated diagnostic tools, have markedly improved the ability to medically extend lives and enhance survival. As patients are living longer, with today's shorter hospital stays and shift towards increased outpatient care, however, the demands placed on all caregivers and their needs have substantially increased. Cancer Caregivers reveals the field of Psycho-Oncology's exploration of the depth of complexities of caregiving experiences and identifies the vast expanses left to be understood. This text describes the characteristics and experiences of cancer caregivers based on their life stage, relationship to the patient, and ethnic group membership, as well as patients' disease and treatment type. It highlights the significant progress in research focused on the development and dissemination of psychosocial interventions for cancer caregivers, and includes in-depth case studies to illustrate their delivery and application. The text also explores the provision of support to caregivers in the community and the legal and ethical concerns faced by caregivers throughout the caregiving process. Cancer Caregivers offers both fundamental and practical information and is the essential resource for all healthcare professionals who work with patients and families facing cancer.

Caregiving is a physically, emotionally, socially, existentially, and financially demanding role that touches most people at some point in their lives. Without support, caregivers are at risk for their own physical and medical problems. Despite being a source of suffering, it at the same time presents an opportunity to connect to meaning and purpose. The authors of this book developed Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy for Cancer Caregivers (MCP-C), the first targeted therapy to comprehensively address existential distress and suffering in caregivers. Across seven sessions and through a series of didactic and experiential exercises, caregivers are guided to explore various sources of meaning in life that can become resources for them, especially when the challenges of caregiving are great. In this manual, the reader will find an overview and background on MCP-C, and in-depth descriptions of each of the seven sessions, with sample therapist scripts and handouts for caregivers engaged in MCP-C. It also includes a case example to bring the material to life. The goal of MCP-C is to provide caregivers with the tools needed to live life as fully as possible, despite the many challenges they face. Research on MCP-C with caregivers of patients with various sites and stages of cancer and across the caregiving trajectory supports the underlying mission of MCP-C: suffering is unavoidable but meaning and purpose is always possible.