ABSTRACT
Fatigue is one of the most common problems experienced by cancer patients (Table 17.1), and noncancer patients with life-threatening diseases. The prevalence of fatigue has been reported as up to 99% of patients receiving active treatment (Radbruch et al. 2008) for patients with cancer. For those with terminal cancer, the range is from 52%–81% (Okuyama et al. 2008). In addition, in our previous hospice study on terminal cancer patients, they generally experienced moderate to severe levels of fatigue (Tsai et al. 2007). Fatigue has been found to be closely linked to decreasing performance (Okuyama et al. 2008; Tsai et al. 2007) and to quality of life.
