Exercise and relaxation intervention for patients with advanced lung cancer: a qualitative feasibility study

Abstract

Lung cancer patients experience loss of physical capacity, dyspnea, pain, reduced energy and psychological distress. The aim of this study was to explore feasibility, health benefits and barriers of exercise in former sedentary patients with advanced stage lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (III-IV) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC) (ED), undergoing chemotherapy. The intervention consisted of a hospital-based, supervised, group exercise and relaxation program comprising resistance-, cardiovascular- and relaxation training 4 h weekly, 6 weeks, and a concurrent unsupervised home-based exercise program. An explorative study using individual semi-structured interviews (n=15) and one focus group interview (n=8) was conducted among the participants. Throughout the intervention the patients experienced increased muscle strength, improvement in wellbeing, breathlessness and energy. The group exercise and relaxation intervention showed an adherence rate of 76%, whereas the patients failed to comply with the home-based exercise. The hospital-based intervention initiated at time of diagnosis encouraged former sedentary lung cancer patients to participation and was undertaken safely by cancer patients with advanced stages of disease, during treatment. The patients experienced physical, functional and emotional benefits. This study confirmed that supervised training in peer-groups was beneficial, even in a cancer population with full-blown symptom burden and poor prognosis.

Safety and feasibility of a combined exercise intervention for inoperable lung cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy: A pilot study

“…The patients' reasons for this low adherence rate have been the subject in a recently publish qualitative analysis [36]. Although the patients claimed that the home-based training program was easy to understand, there were substantial reasons why they did not manage to do it.…”

The Impact of a Multidimensional Exercise Intervention on Physical and Functional Capacity, Anxiety, and Depression in Patients With Advanced-Stage Lung Cancer Undergoing Chemotherapy

“…This is supported by a qualitative interview survey of the patient population in this study. 18 Another possible explanation for this increase may be the effect of the relaxation exercises, which in addition to the effect on the overall HRQoL have also been shown to have an effect on emotional well-being. This effect is emphasized in a systematic review of randomized controlled trials of psychological and/or lifestyle interventions for adults with COPD that concluded that complex psychological and/or lifestyle interventions that include an exercise component significantly reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety.…”

“…The nature of symptoms calls for complex interventions designed to address these symptoms, which is why our group designed a multimodal supervised group intervention combined with a home-based walking program that was tested in a feasibility study. 6,18,19 Due to low adherence in the home-based intervention and lack of energy and motivation toward the home-based component, 18 this part was removed in this phase II study. This observation was in line with our previous research, stating that Danish cancer patients have preferences for exercise organized in groups with peers.…”

Lived Experience among Patients Newly Diagnosed with Lung Adenocarcinoma Stage IV within One Year

“…Study revealed maintaining contact with family and friends for support was important for their quality of life (John, 2010;Eustache et al, 2014). Several strategies such as changing expectations, maintaining positivity, avoiding illness-related thoughts, religion, budgeting time and energy, exercise, relaxation are helpful for cancer patients (John, 2010;Adamsen et al, 2012;Mosher et al, 2015).…”