  Dealing with Hair Loss
Hair loss is a very common side effect of cancer treatment. Whilst it may initially seem a daunting prospect, better understanding and preparing for the experience may make it more bearable. This fact sheet provides information as well as some practical tips for dealing with losing hair.
This fast fact sheet would be useful to health care professionals as a tip sheet when discussing the topic with patients; or to cancer patients as a hand-out.
Topics included in the fast fact sheet:
- Why does it happen?
- What can be done to prepare for it?
- What usually happens as it begins to fall out?
- What usually happens as it begins to grow back again?
This fact sheet is sourced from Ausmed Publications' textbook: 'Psychosocial Care of Cancer Patients: A health professional's guide to what to say and do', editors Dr Jemma Gilchrist & Dr Katharine Hodgkinson, (2008) chapter six: 'Coping with Common Concerns', by Dr Catherine Adams.
Author: Dr Catharine Adams
Catharine Adams is a senior clincial psychologist in a psycho-oncology service providing out-patient care to patients of a tertiary oncology serive in a major regional teaching hospital. She established the clinical arm of this service in 2001 to provide structured interventions to oncology/haematology patients. Catherine has two appointments to the University of Newcastle. As a conjoint senior lecturer in psychology she provides lectures to, and supervision of, postgraduate clinical and health psychology students. As a conjoint teaching fellow in medicine and public health, she provides lectures to, and supervision of, fifth-year medical students in managing anxiety and depression in the oncology populatio, and supervises psychiatry registrars. She has published in the areas of stress management, screening for psychosocial distress, and distress in carers of people with cancer. She is currently developing a group intervention for people recently diagnosed with cancer aimed at reducing levels of traumatic stress for these people and their carers.
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