Maintenance of a High Quality of Life of a Pancreatic Cancer Patient in a Multidisciplinary Care Center: A Case Report

TL;DR

A pancreatic cancer patient maintained a high quality of life for over five years through multidisciplinary care combining physical, social, and psychological support.

Contribution

The paper presents a new model of palliative care that emphasizes long-term multidisciplinary support to maintain quality of life.

Findings

Multidisciplinary care including physical training and social activities helped maintain the patient's quality of life.

The care model extended the patient's survival while preserving physical and psychological well-being.

The approach suggests a new model for palliative and hospice care beyond traditional symptom control.

Abstract

The symptom and treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) at an advanced stage significantly deteriorate patients' quality of life (QOL). Therefore, multidisciplinary long-term and palliative care is needed to maintain patients' physical, social, and psychological well-being and ultimately improve survival.

An octogenarian residing in a care center, which can provide multidisciplinary long-term care with nutritional, physical, and social support, as well as pain management through home medical services, was diagnosed with Stage IV PDA. She received multiple outpatient chemotherapy sessions and experienced cancer-related pain and fatigue. However, participating in individual functional training and altruistic social activities at the day service center, which is a crucial component of Japan's long-term care system, within the care center maintained her high level of QOL for 5 years and 5 months until she died peacefully at the care center.

Multidisciplinary care with nutritional support, palliative care, exercise, and social support at the care center may have reduced the patient's psychological stress and maintained her physical and psychological well-being and ultimately improved her QOL and survival. The multidisciplinary care center may be a candidate for a new model system of palliative and hospice care that did not only provide pain/symptom control and terminal care but also maintained a high QOL of the patient.

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