The objective of this study is to assess the difficulties and their causes, in the perception of nurses, to give aid to the old patient bearer oncologic pathology. The study, descriptive, used The Critical Incident Technique to the obtaining and analyzing of data, complied with the ethical. The subjects were nurses, guests, employees of units of cancer care to people aged over 60 years and working in oncology for more than a year. The subjects cited 25 critical incidents, while 9 situations generated negative feelings, 3 positives and 13 with double feelings. It was concluded that nurses who reported interventions of human character, showed positive feelings, recognizing how important their nursing actions were important to offer human assistance.
Nursing care; Geriatric Nursing; Palliative care; Oncology; Communication