[Going through chemotherapy: an age-revealing process]

Elderly persons want to know about their diagnosis and therapeutic alternatives. Feeling in good health before as well as having gone through hard times enhance acceptability of chemotherapy. Possible issues are perceived in a limited but often overestimated lap of life. At this time, actual age is not present in the patient's mind. But as a result of the treatment, patients feel signs of ageing. The repercussions of the chemotherapy, mainly the tiredness, are withdrawal from social life and retreat into the private sphere. Cancer and chemotherapy give rise to a feeling of loneliness and vulnerability never known until this stage. Weakened by the experience, patients feel ageing. Transport difficulties and isolation are two significant consequences. Although patients claim to have taken the decision to be treated on their own, the investment of the closer relatives will prove to be essential during the chemotherapy. One cannot think about chemotherapy for elderly people without integrating psychosocial and economic dimensions from the outset. The geriatric evaluation must be seen as a dynamic approach likely to be modified by integrating new elements at any stage of the patient's treatment.