As cancer survivors live longer, questions arise about what kind of care long-term survivors require.
A recently published study from Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences found 245 older married women who survived cancer had more health problems as compared to a sample of 245 married women without cancer.
The article, "Health and Well-Being in Older Married Female Cancer Survivors," was published as part of a special supplement of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, along with other articles that resulted from a conference at CWRU on geriatric oncology, said Aloen Townsend, the lead researcher and associate professor of social work.
"There is a pressing need to study older cancer survivors," Townsend said. "It is critical to disentangle the experiences that are unique to older cancer survivors from experiences that are common to aging individuals."
Health care for cancer survivors is a growing concern, according to the researchers.
Beginning with the first wave of the Health and Retirement Study (1992), survey answers from married women who had malignant tumors (excluding skin) were compared with information provided by a sample of married women with no cancers.
The women in both groups were matched for age (51 to 61), ethnicity, and race. They had 12 years of education, came from homes with annual incomes of around $47,000 and had been married between 27-29 years, on average. Nearly half of all women in the study had others, in addition to their husbands, living in their homes.