Living with incurable cancer: what are the rehabilitation needs in a palliative setting?

Abstract

Participants valued a change in terminology away from "palliative" towards more positive language in line with enhanced supportive care movements. Validated tools such as the Palliative Care Therapy Outcome Measure, which align with the ICF, would allow rehabilitation professionals to demonstrate maintenance or improvement in participation and wellbeing. Implications for Rehabilitation Incurable cancer leads to a fluctuating multifactorial disability. People living with incurable cancer can benefit from rehabilitation input throughout their illness. Offering flexible and varied rehabilitation options for people living with incurable cancer will increase physical and emotional well-being, function, and coping. Allied health professionals should take and create opportunities to promote rehabilitation for people living with incurable cancer and their services to other potentially referring healthcare professionals to increase understanding of benefits and utilisation of available services for people living with incurable cancer.

Burden of Treatment among Elderly Patients with Cancer: A Scoping Review

“…Of the 24 included studies, a significant proportion were conducted in the USA (n = 10) [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]. The remaining studies were from other developed countries, including three from the Republic of Ireland [34][35][36], and Australia [37][38][39], two each from the United Kingdom [40,41] and Republic of Korea [42,43], and one each from Canada [44], Iran [45], Finland [46], and Scotland [47]. Most studies used quantitative survey methods (n = 17 out of 24).…”

“…Most studies used quantitative survey methods (n = 17 out of 24). The studies had varying sampling sizes, ranging from 6 [41,47] to 8931 participants [32]. Most studies used self-reported, cross-sectional data, although 3 papers had a longitudinal research design [24][25][26].…”

“…The total estimated time patients spent in the clinic (including wait-time) was 56.6 minutes, although the frequency of clinic visits was not reported. When exploring the lived experiences of people living with incurable cancer, Loughran et al [41] found that the burden of medical appointments, treatments, and procedures left little time for rest or activity, and getting to hospital was difficult for people with limited transport options. Ervin et al found that the need to travel for treatment for those people living in rural areas added to financial hardship [38].…”

“…There was limited information in the included studies on medication burden. Some studies reported long-term physical effects post-cancer treatment, such as poor cosmetic results, reduced range of movement of the affected site, fatigue, diarrhea and vomiting, and difficulty in performing daily activities and attending to personal care needs [24,29,34,36,40,41,47]. Azuero et al [24] examined associations between co-morbidity and predictors of health status among breast cancer survivors.…”

“…Although there were low levels of treatment regret, significant and positive associations were found between regret, activity limitation, and bother with sexual and urinary dysfunction. Finally, participants in Loughran et al [41] reported that treatment side effects caused physical problems, which could fluctuate, causing difficulties. Losing one's own physical strength and sexual function because of treatment had a substantial psychological effect on participants as it challenged their understanding of the male role and image [28].…”