Why Young patients with cancer requiere different coping tools?

Abstract

The medical field has made great advancements in recent decades, but even one in every two men and one in three women will suffer from cancer throughout their lives [1]. Furthermore, cancer was the leading cause of death due to illness in the adolescent and young adult (18-39 year old) population [2]. Despite these figures, no one thinks he is close to suffering from cancer. We prefer to think that it is a disease related to some other collective that we perceive as distant. We are not prepared to deal with the processes involved in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Therefore, it is a disease that poses challenges beyond the medicine itself and that forces to take action in relation to the personal and social environment of the patient, measures that will probably transform their present and future lifestyle. This becomes especially relevant if we focus on cancer in young patients [3].