Reduce your fatigue levels with physical activity

Dr Karen Mustian of the University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, NY discusses fatigue and exercise in cancer patients. Experts, like Dr Mustian, normally see a decline in activity levels following diagnosis, through to treatment. It might seem counterintuitive when an individual is really tired, to exercise, but cancer outcomes become poorer as activity levels decrease. Regular exercise can help you manage the side effects associated with cancer treatment, by helping reduce toxicity levels, and increasing your chances of a better outcome.

Dr Mustian suggests that the best thing for a cancer patient to do first is to strike-up a conversation with their oncologist. As a cancer patient, you should find out what your cancer limitations may be, alongside gaining an insight into your whole health spectrum (i.e. finding out if you additionally have lung disease, heart disease, complications with bone health or metabolic health), in order for you to be more aware of your exercise potential.
Then, your physician should find a credible exercise professional such as a physiotherapist/ exercise physiologist that can help assess your baseline levels, look at your levels of fitness, activity, and well-being, and in turn prescribe you an appropriate exercise routine. You should then proceed to implement your exercise prescription, and allow for your exercise professional to monitor it. Adherence to the exercise prescription has been found to increase if patients work with the professional.

Finally, Dr Karen Mustian further explains that study data addresses that medication adherence is often frequently low (around 50%). Although it may be easy to take a pill, patients do not necessarily prescribe to pharmaceutical prescriptions any better than they do to behavioral prescriptions.
To an exercise intervention, the prescriptions are tailored appropriately to fit the patient’s goals. For example, if a patient is suffering from mental fatigue or cognitive impairment, and their primary goal is to reduce their fatigue, the clinician is not required to prescribe them a plan that would help their physical fatigue. In order to improve mental fatigue, Dr Mustian believes that she can get an improvement with just 10 minutes of activity. If the goal is mental fatigue, and 10 minutes is prescribed, a patient is more likely to stick to the plan – especially when they are sick or undergoing chemotherapy. It is easier than doing an additional 20 minutes of avoidable exercise. The key is to balance the prescription, and in turn, target the specific problem.

Recorded at the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) and International Society of Ocular Oncology (ISOO) 2016 Annual Meeting on Supportive Care in Cancer held in Adelaide, Australia.

This programme has been supported by Helsinn, through an unrestricted educational grant to the Patient Empowerment Foundation.

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