Improving prehabilitation to give patients best preparation for treatment
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Consultation has concluded
Investigating patients and nurses views of how preparation for treatment works
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Background
What is prehabilitation?
Prehabilitation involves patients preparing for cancer treatment to give themselves the best chance of success and recovery.
Patients undertake a prehabilitation programme which focuses on areas like their diet, lifestyle and mental health.
Successful prehabilitation can mean patients can leave hospital quicker, cope better with side-effects and recover sooner.
About this project
- We want to find out what nurses views of prehabilitation (exercise advice, food advice and help with mental health) are and if they routinely discuss these with their patients.
- We will also examine information patients are being given about exercise, diet, mental health, stopping smoking and cutting down on alcohol before and during treatment.
- The project will then ask patients if they received any information around these factors, if they liked it, if it was helpful, what their overall experience was and if they would change the information.
- We are looking for people with experience of chemotherapy prior to surgery to help us design the project. If you are interested, please contact Tessa on [email protected]
I was diagnosed with stage 2 bowel cancer in 2018 and luckily had a colleague who had had a similar diagnosis and was able to give me some simple pre-treatment advice prior to a 15 hour operation in the summer of 2019
Someone else suggested I look at the work being done by the Move Against Cancer charity
You can still read the blog I have written for the charity - Exercise: My Drug of Choice on their fantastic website
https://5kyourway.org/blogs-and-news/f/exercise-my-drug-of-choice
The 5k Your Way initiative is a great informal support group for those living with a cancer diagnosis [and their friends and families]
See https://5kyourway.org/
We have a new group that meets at Nonsuch parkrun on the last Saturday of the month & we walk, run, jog or volunteer and eat cake!
I did question the very brief instructions that I was given on my pre-surgery letter that read "Regular exercise will make you fitter, and you can help your recovery from surgery. Please seek advice from your GP, or our doctors and physiotherapists before you start any exercise program" and was subsequently invited to one of the RM's physical activity strategy meetings last summer to talk about 5k Your Way and some of the physiotherapists do come along to our monthly meetings however, very keen to do more .....
I have a background in Sports / Physical Activity project development and have self-medicated & its certainly helped pre & post treatment
Another great local example is Kevin Webber - he's just published his book Dead Man Running - he's an ultra marathon runner that carried on running after a prostate cancer diagnosis and hasnt stopped!
Look him up on social media
I was given general advice and specific advice all of which are needed before treatment or an operation.
Information given before breast cancer treatment of two ops and tablets.
Information given before Prostate {Brachytherapy} Treatment but not about side effects.
Information given about Rectal Cancer and recovery after 12 hour operation also about Radio Therapy prior to operation.
Sitting in on my support group at Maggies I am constantly hearing men talking about the anxiety caused by not really understanding the journey that they are about to embark on. They don't understand how decisions are made e.g. when to proceed to chemo etc. and when they might need to make personal choices e.g. to put quality of life, time with their family etc. before a course of treatment which might have only a nominal benefit in terms of improved outcome. I have been fortunate in having surgeons etc. who explained these issues quite clearly to me. That didn't make the choices easier but it did give me some clarity, especially when sharing with loved ones.
I was told it would be 3 or 4 weeks between chemo and the surgery to give time to recover from the effects of the chemo. As it happens, with a delay to the op, it was 6 weeks. I was getting a bit agitated thinking the tumour was growing again during this delay. I had little contact with the team, and a quick call to see how I was progressing would have allayed my fears. It was a particularly worrying time because I had been told that it was possible the surgeon might decide during the operation that the tumour was inoperable.