Researchers evaluate how to improve dignity for seriously ill patients

Hearing that you have a life-threatening illness can be physically and emotionally challenging. And while great strides have been made in helping people with a terminal illness manage their physical symptoms toward the end of their lives, helping them cope with the accompanying emotional distress is another story.

“There is a real need for therapeutic interventions that improve the ability of people to cope with these end-of-life emotional and psychological issues,” said Carma Bylund, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist in the University of Florida College of Medicine’s department of health outcomes and biomedical informatics and a member of the UF Health Cancer Center. For the past 20 years, Bylund has studied health care communication among care providers, caregivers and patients in cancer care.