The trajectory of cancer recovery

Abstract

In response to the Corbin and Strauss illness trajectory framework, this paper offers a recovery model as a more relevant trajectory for cancer as a specific chronic disease and as a general framework for clinical science. As counterpoint, the course of recovery is considered as a separate but influential continuum vis-à-vis the course of illness. The text presents an overview of the nature and meaning of cancer as a chronic disease, an operational definition of the recovery model, and a comparison and contrast of the illness and recovery trajectory frameworks in terms of their philosophic nature, therapeutic approach and research and educational and health policy-making emphases with regard to the cancer experience. When fully grounded in recovery science, the recovery trajectory model is predicted to be the more therapeutically effective clinical approach for professionals who care for patients diagnosed with cancer and their families.