Principles of Palliative Care in the Context of Survivorship

Potential reductions in perceived quality of life (QoL) are associated with the diagnosis of cancer and the consequences of its treatment. The notion of cancer survivorship was intended to address the challenges experienced in biopsychosocial domains of functioning that influence perceived QoL. However, owing to the conventionally medicalized provision of cancer survivorship care, comprehensive consideration of QoL may not be fully realized in the survivorship care that is typically enacted, and thus, consideration of QoL may be ultimately relegated to the provision of palliative care received at the end of one’s life. However, if the principles of palliative care are incorporated throughout cancer survivorship care, outside of the end-of-life context, they may serve to bolster the focus on QoL. As such, this chapter aims to provide a clear depiction of the potential significance of principles of palliative care to cancer survivorship care. A comprehensive discussion of the construct of QoL will be presented, including the conceptualization of QoL and the importance of understanding QoL through the idiosyncratic lens of one’s own life. The notion of cancer survivorship will be examined, models of survivorship care will be discussed, and the medicalization of survivorship and its limited scope of QoL-focused care will be presented. Principles of palliative care that are of particular relevance to cancer survivorship will be delineated in consideration of their significance to bolstering the focus on QoL in survivorship.