Overview

Ageing is characterised as a post-reproductive process that occurs in the human being, with changes that lead to a decline in organic capacity, making the individual susceptible to diseases with characteristics of senescence and senility. When it comes to ageing with cancer and the end of the life cycle, the experiences analysed reveal the unpreparedness and denaturalisation of the process of illness and death, as well as the physical and psycho-emotional burden of experiencing them. In this context, palliative care emerges in the discourses of professionals and family members of elderly people with cancer as a source of relief and dignity for the end of the cycle. Palliative care is relevant in the context of multi-professional hospital care, with physiotherapists being able to modify, restore and promote improvements in the quality of life, as well as relieving the symptoms and general difficulties of elderly people with cancer who are terminally ill in the face of palliative care.