An adage often cited in the business world applies to the pursuit of Healthy Survivorship: Failing to plan is planning to fail.
For most people, a cancer diagnosis disrupts life as they knew it. After completion of treatment, the desire to get "back to normal" often yields to the realization that the healthier goal is to "create a new normal" that integrates all the changes and losses of survivorship.
In cancer communities, patients and professionals are recognizing the urgent need for so-called Survivorship Care Planning, which includes individualized guidelines for monitoring and maintaining their health.
Plan Beyond Cancer was developed in response to the 2006 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition, which called for broad survivorship care planning that addresses "the whole person."
Plan Beyond Cancer is the first of its kind: a survivor-created, holistic cancer survivorship plan, that helps survivors live intentionally, identify achievable goals, minimize financial risk, improve communication with providers and loved ones, contemplate career changes, and celebrate spirituality, sensuality, and community in their lives. The website provides an interactive planning document, complete with resource links and guidance from other survivors.
Plan Beyond Cancer is organized around major life areas:
- Healthful Living
- Spirituality and Values
- Emotional Health and Sensuality
- Finances
- Work Life
- Family and Community
- Medical Care
Currently restricted to residents of Dane County, WI, Plan Beyond Cancer represents a growing movement to help patients in their efforts to be Healthy Survivors after completion of treatment.
See if your community has a similar program.
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