Chemotherapy is chemical therapy that is a frequently used course of treatment for patients diagnosed with cancer. While this therapy can often improve prognoses, it also causes nausea, a generalized feeling of sickness, and emesis, a vomitus product of nausea. Chemotherapy induced emesis can cause critical manifestations that lead to a substandard patient quality of life and negatively influence his or her ability to comply with the therapy. This can result in patients prematurely discontinuing their treatment, and therefore prompting poor courses of treatment. It can also lead to a patient maintaining a defeated attitude, especially during long courses of treatment. Research studying first-hand experiences of patients, regarding physical
…show more content…
Research has consistently shown that a patient’s quality of life, including physical, cognitive and social functioning, steadily declines once starting chemotherapy treatment, with qualities of life decreasing from 75% to 66.7%. This decline includes manifestations such as increasing fatigue, nausea and vomiting, pain, dyspnea, insomnia, appetite loss, constipation, and diarrhea (Chean, Zang, Lim, & Zulkefle, 2016) Patients have described chemotherapy’s effect on the quality of life by describing it as unbearable, and described it as “the worst side effect of chemotherapy”(Hernandez et al., 2015). They have also experienced worsening psychological symptoms, with “maladaptive coping (i.e. hopelessness-helplessness and anxious precaution) and emotional distress were associated with” chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. “Patients who developed nausea after chemotherapy had a higher despairing and preoccupied attitudes about their disease...as well as a higher level of emotional distress, as measured before chemotherapy (Grassi et al., 2015). Psychological symptoms have been shown to intensify the physical, making the combination an obstacle in the treatment process. The manifestations these patients face is a continuous issue that can be mitigated by pharmacological timing interventions and by the utilization of the endocannabinoid
Research has consistently shown that a patient’s quality of life, including physical, cognitive and social functioning, steadily declines once starting chemotherapy treatment, with qualities of life decreasing from 75% to 66.7%. This decline includes manifestations such as increasing fatigue, nausea and vomiting, pain, dyspnea, insomnia, appetite loss, constipation, and diarrhea (Chean, Zang, Lim, & Zulkefle, 2016) Patients have described chemotherapy’s effect on the quality of life by describing it as unbearable, and described it as “the worst side effect of chemotherapy”(Hernandez et al., 2015). They have also experienced worsening psychological symptoms, with “maladaptive coping (i.e. hopelessness-helplessness and anxious precaution) and emotional distress were associated with” chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. “Patients who developed nausea after chemotherapy had a higher despairing and preoccupied attitudes about their disease...as well as a higher level of emotional distress, as measured before chemotherapy (Grassi et al., 2015). Psychological symptoms have been shown to intensify the physical, making the combination an obstacle in the treatment process. The manifestations these patients face is a continuous issue that can be mitigated by pharmacological timing interventions and by the utilization of the endocannabinoid