Cancer and Aging: Reflections for Elders (CARE): A pilot randomized controlled trial of a psychotherapy intervention for older adults with cancer.

Objective: Cancer and Aging: Reflections for Elders (CARE) is a novel, telephone-delivered intervention designed to alleviate distress in older cancer patients. This pilot randomized controlled trial tested the feasibility and initial efficacy of CARE, drawing from age-appropriate developmental themes and well-established coping theory.

Method: Eligible patients were ≥70 years old; ≥6 months post-diagnosis of lung, prostate, breast, lymphoma, or gynecological cancer; on active cancer treatment or within 6 months of ending cancer treatment; and had elevated scores on the Distress Thermometer (≥4) or Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (≥6).

Mindfulness and psychosocial care in cancer: historical context and review of current and potential applications.

Mindfulness-based interventions and mindfulness techniques have become increasingly popular in psychosocial care.  These interventions have also been increasingly used with cancer patients and survivors. However, more attention is due to issues such as how these techniques may be specifically relevant for an oncology population and whether the religious derivation of mindfulness should be considered by frontline psychosocial clinicians.

Pilot randomized controlled trial of individual meaning-centered psychotherapy for patients with advanced cancer.

Purpose: Spiritual well-being and sense of meaning are important concerns for clinicians who care for patients with cancer. We developed Individual Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy (IMCP) to address the need for brief interventions targeting spiritual well-being and meaning for patients with advanced cancer.

Patients And Methods: Patients with stage III or IV cancer (N = 120) were randomly assigned to seven sessions of either IMCP or therapeutic massage (TM).

Reappraisal in the eighth life cycle stage: a theoretical psychoeducational intervention in elderly patients with cancer.

Elderly patients with cancer face unique physical and psychiatric challenges in coping with their illness. Optimal psychosocial therapy for older cancer patients requires recognizing certain enhanced psychological capacities such as coping better with illness, which is associated with older age. This strength can be combined with the most appropriate cognitive coping strategies to develop a model intervention.

Meaning-centered group psychotherapy for patients with advanced cancer: a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Objectives: An increasingly important concern for clinicians who care for patients at the end of life is their spiritual well-being and sense of meaning and purpose in life. In response to the need for short-term interventions to address spiritual well-being, we developed Meaning Centered Group Psychotherapy (MCGP) to help patients with advanced cancer sustain or enhance a sense of meaning, peace and purpose in their lives, even as they approach the end of life.

Methods: Patients with advanced (stage III or IV) solid tumor cancers (N=90) were randomly assigned to either MCGP or a supportive group psychotherapy (SGP).

Spiritual pain among patients with advanced cancer in palliative care.

Background: The large body of empirical research suggesting that patients' spiritual and existential experiences influence the disease process has raised the need for health care professionals to understand the complexity of patients' spiritual pain and distress.

Objective: The current study explores the multidimensional nature of spiritual pain, in patients with end-stage cancer, in relation to physical pain, symptom severity, and emotional distress.

Design/measurements: The study combines a quantitative evaluation of participants' intensity of spiritual pain, physical pain, depression, and intensity of illness, with a qualitative focus on the nature of patients' spiritual pain and the kinds of interventions patients believed would ameliorate their spiritual pain.

Psychotherapeutic interventions at the end of life: a focus on meaning and spirituality.

Medical and psychological discourse on end-of-life care has steadily shifted over the years from focusing primarily on symptom control and pain management to incorporating more person-centred approaches to patient care. Such approaches underscore the significance of spirituality and meaning making as important resources for coping with emotional and existential suffering as one nears death. Though existential themes are omnipresent in end-of-life care, little has been written about their foundations or import for palliative care practitioners and patients in need.