Shrinks to treat cancer patients now

Psycho-oncology is a new concept in India, but it is fast being recognised as an essential tool in the care and treatment of cancer patients.

Jayshree was detected with breast cancer five years ago, and that day onwards her life came to a complete standstill.

But now Jayshree is leading a healthy and normal life. So how did this come about?

Says Jayshree, “Psycho-oncology is a must for oncology patients. Definitely doctors have a major role to play but they are curing my body. What about my mental status?"

Jayshree was lucky to have met leading psycho-oncologist Dr Brindha Sitaram who helped her and her family deal with the tremendous psychological, emotional and social distress that cancer brings to patients and their families alike.

"We have found in our clinical experience that it motivates patients, dropout rates become lower, people tolerate treatment better and quality of life is far better. At any given point of time we have 15 lakh cancer patients in this country. Unfortunately we have no data to talk about, the magnitude of the psychological distress of the patients that they go through,” says Dr Sitaram who is also founder-director of Centre of Psycho-Oncology for Education and Research (COPER).

A growing necessity for an institute that provides qualified psycho-oncologists, prompted her to start COPER. And setting up the institute though was anything but easy.

Says Dr Sitaram, “There was a lot of resistance in the beginning because they thought that going to a psycho-oncologist is like saying they have gone crazy but slowly things are opening up. But what we need to clarify is that these patients don't go through psychiatric problems. These are psychological problems that you and I could have.”

So psycho-oncology helps cancer patients and their families look at the human face of cancer while fighting the disease.

source : news.yahoo.com