Exercise intervention for patients diagnosed with operable non-small cell lung cancer: a qualitative longitudinal feasibility study

Abstract

The exercise intervention was undertaken safely by operable lung cancer patients initiated 2 weeks after surgery. The intervention put the patients on track to a healthier lifestyle regarding physical activity and smoking. The study indicates that exercise initiated early in the treatment trajectory is beneficial for operable lung cancer patients and especially for those who were physically active and motivated pre-illness and who did not experience side effect of treatment.

Effect of postsurgical rehabilitation programmes in patients operated for lung cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The findings are in contrast to previous research in patients with COPD, patients with other cancer diseases and qualitative research in patients undergoing lung resection for NSCLC (9). One of the possible reasons for this is how HRQoL was assessed, as SF-36 is a generic HRQoL questionnaire, or the lack of statistical power in the studies in the present review.…”

“…Exercise initiated early in the treatment trajectory is found to be beneficial for operable lung cancer patients (9,10). In a population diagnosed with myocardial infarction, early-initiated exercise in the acute phase has shown greater benefits on exercise capacity than is the case in exercise interventions initiated in a later treatment phase (11).…”

Physical Activity and Quality of Life in Cancer Survivors: A Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Research

“…Physical activity enabled participants to shift their focus from sickness and disease to wellness and health [32,33,38,39,42,45,48,50,53,54,55,57,61,63,67,69]. It also gave them something to do and kept their minds busy.…”

“…Physical activity provided opportunities for participants to (re)discover what their bodies were capable of doing, regardless of where they were along the cancer trajectory (e.g., on-treatment, off-treatment [34,41,42,43,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,55,59,62,66,67,68,69,71]. It also fostered body awareness by helping some participants (re)gain a connection with their bodies.…”

“…Physical activity was viewed by participants as something they could do to promote their own health, which fostered a sense of control over at least one facet of their lives [33,35,40,41,45,47,48,50,51,52,55,62,63,65,68,69]. Because many participants commented that they felt as though they had lost control over their health and body since their diagnosis, doing activities that made them feel in control and empowered was important.…”