[Treatment Decision-Making in Elderly Cancer Patients: Principles, Challenges, and Evaluation Strategies].

Abstract

The treatment decision-making process used by elderly cancer patients is crucial because, with advancing age, patients experience a decline in physical function and often face multiple comorbidities, reducing their tolerance to cancer treatments and increasing toxic reactions. Therefore, in considering multiple factors such as treatment effectiveness, quality of life, and survival time, the treatment of elderly cancer patients must take into account individualized factors and utilize relevant assessment tools to help minimize treatment-related risks. However, understanding and assessing treatment decisions by nursing staff regarding elderly patients are issues that have rarely been discussed. Thus, in this paper, the principled considerations, challenges, and evaluation strategies related to treatment decision-making in elderly cancer patients are discussed. It is hoped that this paper will assist future clinical healthcare professionals to fully utilize the roles and functions of nurses in the treatment decision-making process when caring for elderly cancer patients. The objectives are to enhance understanding of the considerations and challenges specific to this demographic and to implement relevant assessment content in order to better guide treatment decision-making processes and positively impact the decisions made.