Ageism and its clinical impact in oncogeriatry: state of knowledge and therapeutic leads

Abstract

Cancer is a major health problem that is widespread in elderly people. Paradoxically, older people suffering from cancer are often excluded from clinical trials and are undertreated when compared to younger patients. One explanation for these observations is age stigma (ie, stereotypes linked to age, and thus ageism). These stigmas can result in deleterious consequences for elderly people’s mental and physical health in “normal” aging. What, then, is the impact in a pathological context, such as oncology? Moreover, health care professionals’ attitudes can be tainted with ageism, thus leading to undesirable consequences for patients. To counter these stigmas, we can apply some possible interventions emerging from research on normal aging and from social psychology, such as intergenerational contact, activation of positive stereotypes, self-affirmation, and so on; these tools can improve opinions of aging among the elderly people themselves, as well as health care professionals, thus affecting patients’ mental and physical health.

Tailored communication for older patients with cancer: Using cluster analysis to identify patient profiles based on information needs

“…Although interpersonal interactions between two individuals have the potential to be tailored, older patients with cancer often have unmet information needs after having had a consultation with their health care provider [5,6]. One explanation for this could be that older patients with cancer run the risk of being treated as a homogenous group due to age stigma or stereotypes associated with aging [8]. Although research suggests that they in fact have very heterogeneous information needs [5], there is little understanding of what these information needs precisely look like and how this information can be used by clinicians to adapt their information provision in a relatively easy way.…”

Outcomes of Elderly Patients with Advanced Soft Tissue Sarcoma Treated with First-Line Chemotherapy: A Pooled Analysis of 12 EORTC Soft Tissue and Bone Sarcoma Group Trials

“…The median follow-up time for elderly patients who were still alive at the time of their analyses was 9.5 months (IQR, [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Of note, the median follow-up time for patients treated with trabectedin who were still alive at the time of the clinical cutoff date was considerably shorter than for the other treatment groups (trabectedin, 6 Response Rates (Table 2) In total, 48 patients (13.8%) had a partial response and 4 patients (1.1%) had complete response.…”

Direct Costs of Very Old Persons with Subsyndromal Depression: A 5-Year Prospective Study

“…The reason why very old persons have such a small consumption of psychiatric care is not fully understood. Lack of access to psychiatric healthcare resources can be a result of depressive symptoms themselves or of disability (36), a result of barriers in the meeting with healthcare personnel (37), of ageism (38), of stigma from mental health problems, or simply due to the patients' preferences (39).…”