About Our Projects

Recent projects funded by the Quality of Life Foundation include a free publication titled The Strength to Fight Cancer - A Family Guide, a paperback book written for those people whose lives are touched by cancer, including survivors, patients, families, caregivers, and loved ones.

Whether for the patient himself, or a loved one as the caregiver, this guide is designed to help navigate the uncertain waters of cancer. The book's foreword was written by cancer survivor and television actress, Jill Eikenberry and her husband, actor Michael Tucker, who have previously participated in Quality of Life Foundation fundraisers. Chapter titles include Talking to Your Doctors and Your Nurses, The Emotional Challenges, Workplace Challenges, and Paying for Cancer Care. A chapter of comprehensive resource information sources is also included.

To view this book online or to order free copies, click on the link to the right for information.

The Quality of Life Foundation has also funded a quality of life related pilot project called the Symptom Monitor. This is a computer-automated system that utilizes the technologies of both the touch-tone telephone and the Internet to enable cancer patients to provide home-based ratings of their symptoms between office visits with their oncologist and oncology nurses. The Symptom Monitor was used to allow the patient care team to easily, conveniently, and quickly assess and regularly monitor symptoms their patients were experiencing and how the symptoms were interfering with their daily activities in order to address them in a timely manner.

The Symptom Monitor utilizes a series of questions developed at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas known as "MDASI" (MD Anderson Symptom Inventory). The MDASI monitors 13 core symptoms that patients may experience. It also includes 6 questions about how those symptoms interfere with patients' daily activities. To view the MDASI, click here and go to the "Symptom Assessments Tools" link in the second paragraph, then to the MDASI link.

How Does the Symptom Monitor Work?

Patients participated in the pilot in one of two ways. The telephone component enabled patients to receive scheduled phone calls each week from the Symptom Monitor at times they had previously chosen. Patients could also make inbound calls to the Symptom Monitor themselves as often as they wanted. During these telephone calls, patients were asked a series of questions about the symptoms they were experiencing due to cancer treatment and how these symptoms were interfering with their daily activities. Patients reported the answers to these questions using the keypad on their touch-tone telephone.

For patients who preferred to participate instead via the computer, they logged onto a secure Internet site using a personal I.D. and password. They completed the same series of questions noted previously utilizing their own computer or a computer located at their cancer clinic.

How Did the Cancer Care Team Use the Results?

For both telephone and Internet patient participation in the Symptom Monitor, a report was generated and sent immediately via facsimile or email to the clinic where the patient was undergoing treatment. This enabled doctors and nurses to have symptom scores in a lab report format prior to patient appointments so that symptom changes could be addressed immediately. The patient's physician(s) used these results to focus on specific problems the patient was having at the time of the office visit. The home-based nature of the symptom reporting system also helped to identify problems patients were having between office visits.

Data analysis is currently being conducted on the Symptom Monitor pilot to determine the feasibility of rolling this out in a daily clinical setting.

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