Physiotherapy

Cancer is a progressive disease and tends to have a crucial impact on the patient's emotional and physical well-being following treatment. Many cancer patients also experience physical dysfunction, muscle weakness, and lack of flexibility and endurance resulting from cancer treatment. Here’s where physiotherapy helps. It is a comprehensive approach that evaluates and treats physical dysfunction such as weakness, soft tissue tightness, fatigue, joint swelling, stiffness, and others. This therapy helps cancer patients stay active and improve their quality of life with exercises such as strengthening, stretching, and aerobic exercises. Physiotherapists work along with other rehabilitation teams to improve the treatment outcome.

Types of Rehabilitation

Based on the stage of prognosis, oncological physiotherapy can be classified as:

• Supportive physiotherapy: This kind of physiotherapy helps patients move and perform basic functions despite their limitations and impairments.
• Restorative physiotherapy: This therapy aims at helping patients return to their normal functions like they used to before treatment. 
• Palliative physiotherapy: Palliative care is most often given to patients who do not have much hope for survival and aim to improve their quality of life. This therapy focuses on reducing side effects such as contractures, muscle  deconditioning, and pressure sores.

Goals of Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation effectively lowers cancer-related fatigue, increasing patients' physical capacity and improving their quality of life. Its aims are as follows:

• Restore regular body functional activities
• Reduce impairment 
• Eliminate or lower any functional difficulties 
• Compensate any physical deficits
• Educate on maintaining strength and flexibility and how can it be improved during and after cancer treatment.

They also offer palliative care rehabilitation, most often to terminally ill patients. This helps them overcome complications and manage pain.

Why is physiotherapy needed for cancer patients?

It is not an uncommon fact that cancer patients experience major side effects from cancer therapy, typically from chemotherapy and radiation. Neuropathies, myopathies, swelling, fatigue, pain, osteoporosis, depression, and generalized deconditioning, to name a few. When a patient undergoes rehabilitation, they feel exhausted, contributed by high-stress levels and the side effects of drugs. These prevent the patient from getting sound sleep or good rest.