1. Rehabilitative medicine and physiotherapy services in community oncology.
- Author
-
Grant, Alexander, Lesniak Walton, Susanne, Knapik, Gayle, Collacutt, Vivian L., and Brigden, Malcolm
- Subjects
- *
COMMUNITY health services , *CANCER patient rehabilitation , *CANCER , *PHYSICAL therapy , *PATIENT-centered care , *ONCOLOGY , *CANCER treatment complications , *PREVENTION - Abstract
Patient-centred cancer care requires careful attention to both quantity and quality of life. Assuring safety, comfort, and function for cancer patients requires the efforts of a multidisciplinary healthcare team.1,2,3 Rehabilitation services, including physiotherapy, have long been recognized as an integral component of comprehensive cancer care.2,3,4 Despite significant advances in cancer treatment and management, cancer survivors continue to experience multiple morbidities as a consequence of both the cancer itself and cancer treatment. Physical impairments in strength, range of motion, mobility, fatigue, pain, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy and lymphedema can be significantly improved with physiotherapy interventions.4,5 In addition, such interventions have been shown to be cost-effective by reducing the need to access other more costly healthcare services, as well as reducing indirect costs of cancer survivorship, such as caregiver burden, transportation costs and equipment needs.5,6 While there are usually rehabilitation/physiotherapy programs present at Canadian tertiary cancer centres, such essential services may function and be structured quite differently in the community cancer care setting.7,8 This paper describes how a busy community cancer program located at the Jack Ady Cancer Centre (JACC) in Lethbridge, Alberta, introduced and then optimized an on-site physiotherapy program to meet its growing cancer patient care needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017