Living with altered body image: the cancer experience

Abstract

A wide range of cancer problems (e.g. tumour, treatment and treatment delivery systems) cause alterations in body image for patients. Individuals' sense of self-worth is bound up with appearance, function and control of their bodies. This value system is developed through the process of socialization and the advertising in the fashion industries. Nurses must consider the value system that patients employ and the way in which they value different aspects of their bodies. Nurses cannot make effective care contributions to the problems of altered body image during the immediate acute phase of illness. It is at a later stage, normally at discharge, that patients experience a reaction to their altered body image.