Experiences in Home Care of Cancer Patients A new approach in cancer nursing

Abstract

As a result of mutilating operative procedures, aggressive cytotoxic chemotherapy and terminal stage of the disease, tumor patients face frequent visits to the tumor center. They are often hospitalized and thereby excluded from family and home. To enable cancer therapy and supportive care on an ambulatory basis, a team consisting of two physicians, two nurses and one psychologist was settled in our department in November 1986. The purpose of this team was to transfer several oncological treatment modalities from the hospital to the homes of the patients. Apart from organizing the patients' discharge from the hospital and coordinating treatment, the main task of the team has been to follow the patient during the course of the disease and give psycological support. In our experience the possibility of home care has clearly improved the patients' quality of life.

A multi-method review of home-based chemotherapy

“…Several papers report that a small minority of patients express serious concerns about home‐based chemotherapy and/or explicitly prefer hospital treatment, thus emphasising the importance of patient education and patient choice (Ophof et al . ; Herrmann et al . ; Westermann et al .…”

Thirty Years’ Experience with Cancer and Non-Cancer Patients in Palliative Home Care

“…However, from the outset we offered all the different services later reported as offered by other programs: home rehabilitation (21,22), continuous physiotherapy (23), home mechanical ventilation (24), home IV program (25,26), mobile geriatric team (27), home long-term care (28), and home hospice (29). Due to Swedish legislation on the administration of chemotherapy, we have not offered traditional oncologic therapy in patients' homes (30).…”