Eating and Quality of Life in Older Adults with Cancer

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EXCEED THE SPACE PROVIDED. This application is in response to the NIA Pilot Research Grant Program (PAR-03-056), Topic 8. Cancer in the Elderly. The purpose of this study is to investigate the social and cultural significance of food and eating in community-dwelling older adults with cancer, their caregivers, and their health-care providers, and the affect that this significance has on the development, maintenance, or erosion of the social relationships existing between these individuals and on their quality of life. This is an exploratory study using qualitative interviews that will address three specific questions: 1) What do food and eating represent to community- dwelling older adults with cancer, their caregivers, and their health-care providers? 2) How do the illness and disease process affect the relationship(s) between community-dwelling older adults with cancer and their caregivers as it is mediated by food and eating? 3) How is the instrumental social support given by family, friends, and neighbors, in the form of providing food for the community-dwelling older adult with cancer received by that adult and those living in the same household? In-depth, semi-structured face-to-face interviews will be conducted with two groups of community-dwelling older adults with cancer, their caregivers, and their healthcare providers. The first group of patients will be those who are actively undergoing anti-tumor treatment. The second group will be terminally ill cancer patients who are no longer undergoing anti-tumor therapies. Interviews will be reviewed and systematically coded for thematic and relational content using N6, the latest version of the NUD*IST software. The significance of this project lies in its demonstration of how the social and cultural, as well as the physiological dimensions of food must be taken into account in older adults with cancer. This is particularly relevant in older patients with cancer where matters related to food and eating may become especially problematic. This study will provide preliminary pilot data that can be used to develop interventions aimed at the alleviation of symptoms associated with food and eating. Data gathered from this study will provide information from the perspective of the patients and their caregivers that can be used to design randomized clinical trials involving behavioral interventions that will enable health care providers to better serve older cancer patients. PERFORMANCE SITE ========================================Section End===========================================