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Review
. 2020 Mar;11(2):217-224.
doi: 10.1016/j.jgo.2019.09.005. Epub 2019 Oct 15.

Social support for older adults with cancer: Young International Society of Geriatric Oncology review paper

Sindhuja Kadambi  1 , Enrique Soto-Perez-de-Celis  2 , Tullika Garg  3 , Kah Poh Loh  1 , Jessica L Krok-Schoen  4 , Nicolò Matteo Luca Battisti  5 , Gordon Taylor Moffat  6 , Luiz A Gil-Jr  7 , Supriya Mohile  1 , Tina Hsu  8
Affiliations
Review

Social support for older adults with cancer: Young International Society of Geriatric Oncology review paper

Sindhuja Kadambi et al. J Geriatr Oncol. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

Older adults with cancer have increasing needs in physical, cognitive, and emotional domains, and they can experience decline in all domains with the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Social support plays a key role in supporting these patients, mitigating negative effects of diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and improving cancer outcomes. We review the importance of social support in older adults with cancer, describe the different components of social support and how they are measured, discuss current interventions that are available to improve social support in older adults, and describe burdens on caregivers. We also highlight Dr. Arti Hurria's contributions to recognizing the integral role of social support to caring for older adults with cancer.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Dr. Arti Hurria’s social support and caregivers research bibliometric network. A: Dr. Hurria’s Bibliometric Network on social support* Panel B: Bibliometric Network of work done by Dr. Hurria on caregivers** Each color represents a “cluster” of authors who worked on common papers. *Articles by Dr. Hurria with the terms “social” and “support” in the title and/or abstract obtained from PubMed Central database (22 documents). **Articles by Dr. Hurria mentioning the terms “caregivers” in the title and/or abstract obtained from PubMed Central database (9 documents). Authors with two or more co-authorships have been included. Created using VOSviewer (http://www.vosviewer.com/).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Attributes of social support.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Effects of social stress on tumor microenvironment, cancer growth and progression. Used with permission from Lutgendorf et al. [46].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Yang YC, Li T, Ji Y. Impact of social integration on metabolic functions: evidence from a nationally representative longitudinal study of US older adults. BMC Public Health 2013;13:1210. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Penwell LM, Larkin KT. Social support and risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer: a qualitative review examining the role of inflammatory processes. Health Psychol Rev 2010;4(1):42–55.