Categorizing Benefits of Exercise for Cancer Patients
It was once considered dangerous for cancer patients to engage in any type of aerobic exercise program, and some clinics still cling to old ideas about what cancer patients are and are not capable of. Safety is an important concern, especially for those undergoing bone cancer or mesothelioma treatment, but organizations devoted to cancer research believe that this concern should be mitigated by the many benefits gained by patients engaging in a regular fitness program.
What Benefits of Exercise Have Been Evaluated for Cancer Patients?
The benefits of regular exercise can be summed into three categories: quality of life, survival and life expectancy, and risk of recurrence. Though individual studies are necessarily limited to testing one category of benefits for a specific type of cancer, mountains of empirical evidence have shown that exercise can have a positive effect on all three categories.
Quality of life metrics are generally a composite look at the duration and severity of symptoms experienced by a patient. Symptoms included on these metrics are emotional disturbances, digestive upset, sleeping patterns, and fatigue. Exercise has proven capable of addressing all three when used regularly and matching the individual's fitness level. Those with a history of exercise will be able to reach and possibly surpass the recommended 150-minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobics, while others may have to exercise for a while before reaching this amount. Even patients with limited mobility have been shown to benefit from specially tailored exercise programs devised by a fitness expert working with the cancer treatment team.
Quality of life seems intuitively to play a role in survival, but it has been shown definitively to be an important part of predicting life expectancy for those facing a diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer. In other studies, sufficient evidence exists to show that more physical activity increases survival without referencing quality of life.
Finally, a sedentary lifestyle is a known risk factor for developing many types of cancer, along with a host of other chronic diseases. Lack of physical activity also increases risk of cancer recurrence in survivors. Just as survivors of cardiac disease have long been urged to engage in routine exercise, so too cancer survivors are increasingly being called upon to use exercise to lower risk of recurrence.
Choosing the Right Amount and Type of Exercise for Maximum Benefit
Getting the right amount of exercise is not a guessing game. Many cancer patients should have little trouble with moderate-intensity aerobics, but others need to take the kinds of precautions that can only be provided by a physical therapist working with the physician. In either case, it is important to choose an enjoyable form of exercise, because regularity is key to realizing benefits.
It was once considered dangerous for cancer patients to engage in any type of aerobic exercise program, and some clinics still cling to old ideas about what cancer patients are and are not capable of. Safety is an important concern, especially for those undergoing bone cancer or mesothelioma treatment, but organizations devoted to cancer research believe that this concern should be mitigated by the many benefits gained by patients engaging in a regular fitness program.
What Benefits of Exercise Have Been Evaluated for Cancer Patients?
The benefits of regular exercise can be summed into three categories: quality of life, survival and life expectancy, and risk of recurrence. Though individual studies are necessarily limited to testing one category of benefits for a specific type of cancer, mountains of empirical evidence have shown that exercise can have a positive effect on all three categories.
Quality of life metrics are generally a composite look at the duration and severity of symptoms experienced by a patient. Symptoms included on these metrics are emotional disturbances, digestive upset, sleeping patterns, and fatigue. Exercise has proven capable of addressing all three when used regularly and matching the individual's fitness level. Those with a history of exercise will be able to reach and possibly surpass the recommended 150-minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobics, while others may have to exercise for a while before reaching this amount. Even patients with limited mobility have been shown to benefit from specially tailored exercise programs devised by a fitness expert working with the cancer treatment team.
Quality of life seems intuitively to play a role in survival, but it has been shown definitively to be an important part of predicting life expectancy for those facing a diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer. In other studies, sufficient evidence exists to show that more physical activity increases survival without referencing quality of life.
Finally, a sedentary lifestyle is a known risk factor for developing many types of cancer, along with a host of other chronic diseases. Lack of physical activity also increases risk of cancer recurrence in survivors. Just as survivors of cardiac disease have long been urged to engage in routine exercise, so too cancer survivors are increasingly being called upon to use exercise to lower risk of recurrence.
Choosing the Right Amount and Type of Exercise for Maximum Benefit
Getting the right amount of exercise is not a guessing game. Many cancer patients should have little trouble with moderate-intensity aerobics, but others need to take the kinds of precautions that can only be provided by a physical therapist working with the physician. In either case, it is important to choose an enjoyable form of exercise, because regularity is key to realizing benefits.
By David Haas
