Symptom clusters: impediments and suggestions for solutions.

The human experience of cancer is marked by the occurrence of multiple symptoms that influence one's ability to continue usual activities and enjoy life. Although the symptom experience is complex and multifaceted, knowledge of it has been limited by a paradigm that has been singular in scope, even when multiple symptoms have been studied. This approach, focused on one symptom at time, holds true not only for descriptive and intervention research, but also for studies and published treatise on the barriers to management of specific symptoms.