An Exercise Intervention for Advanced Cancer Patients Experiencing Fatigue: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Fatigue is reported by advanced cancer patients to be their most prevalent and distressing symptom. Despite this, few interventions have been developed and tested to manage this debilitating symptom. This paper describes a pilot study undertaken to test the effects of a 28-day exercise intervention on levels of fatigue in advanced cancer patients. All participants were able to increase their activity levels with no increase in reported fatigue. Furthermore, a trend was noted in all patients toward increased quality of life scores and decreased anxiety scores, All participants described a sense of satisfaction in attaining increased activity levels. These preliminary pilot results suggest that patients who initially report the highest levels of fatigue may achieve the largest decrease in fatigue scores. These findings provide support for the suitability of this intervention for the palliative care population and justify the importance of further hypothesis testing.

Kinesitherapy alleviates fatigue in terminal hospice cancer patients—an experimental, controlled study

“…4). Porock et al results were similar despite the methodological differences of the study [25]. It is worth mentioning that the quality of life per se in the advanced cancer patients is gradually deteriorating with the progression of the disease, which is supported by the analysis of the quality of life in group B.…”

“…So far, only three published research, Yoshioka [24], Porock et al [25], and Oldervoll et al [26], have coped with patients suffering from incurable cancer. However, their patients were in the earlier stage of cancer than our patients, and the research itself had a different methodology.…”

“…It results from the fact that there is the insufficient number of research which could prove the positive impact of the physical activity on CRF in terminal cancer patients. There were only two reports (Yoshioka [24] and Porock et al [25]) concerning the rehabilitation of the terminal hospice cancer patients before our research started in 2003. Yoshioka's research, published in 1994, included the hospice patients in the period of 6 months before their death.…”

“…Next, it was only in 2000 that Porock's pilot study was published. The research was carried out on the group of nine patients under home hospice care, but no standardised schedule of patients' rehabilitation was used, and there was no control group [25]. After our study was completed in 2006, the research of Oldervoll et al was published.…”

Diagnose und Therapie der tumorbedingten Fatigue

“…Kör-perliches Training scheint darüber hinaus auch für Patienten mit fortgeschrittenem Tumorleiden sinnvoll zu sein. So konnte mittels in einem Hospiz durchgeführte Untersuchungen nachgewiesen werden, dass leichtes körperliches Training wie Armübungen oder 5-minütiges Laufen zu einer messbaren Reduktion der Fatigue-Symptomatik geführt hat [15].…”