Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer Prehabilitation and Rehabilitation

Thanks to the incredible developments in cancer treatment, more people are surviving for longer. However, cancer and its treatments can cause a variety of problems that interfere with your life in physical, emotional and practical ways. These can include pain, fatigue, muscle weakness, breathlessness, restricted movement and deconditioning.

Signs that you may need cancer rehab services include:

• Feeling weak
• Having problems moving
• Experiencing pain or soreness
• Feeling tired
• Having difficulty sleeping
• Having muscular or joint problems
• Experiencing balance problems
• Finding it difficult to recover from treatment and do the things you used to do
• Uncertain about what activities are safe
• Struggling with memory problems, concentrating or returning to work

Cancer rehab can help improve your ability to function as normally as possible more quickly and to a greater degree. It can also help you reduce fatigue, pain and prevent the development of long term side effects. The earlier in your cancer journey you start rehabilitation the better but if you have already started or even completed treatment it isn’t too late to reap the benefits and get back to living!

Cancer rehab can not only improve the lives of people with cancer but it can improve their lives after cancer. Older people tell us that one of their biggest concerns after a cancer diagnosis is their trajectory towards frailty, dependence and ultimately mortality. Anything we can do to delay these concerns from becoming reality is vital. Cancer rehabilitation can make this difference as interventions such as strength training may help prevent or delay the progression of frailty.

For older people, you may have other health conditions such as degeneration of hip and knee joints, diabetes, COPD, heart disease and many more. This makes prescribing individualised oncology rehab essential and our physiotherapists are competent and comfortable looking after you.

If you have just been diagnosed with cancer and are expecting to undergo treatment it can be hugely beneficial to increase your strength and fitness right now. This is called cancer pre-habilitation and we are able to set up a programme based on where you are at now and where you need to be going into treatment.