Improving Quality of Life in Cancer With Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation

In a conversation with CancerNetwork^®, Jessica Cheng, MD, spoke about her work in the growing field of physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) and how it may improve quality of life outcomes among patients with cancer.

Above all else, Cheng, an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Supportive Care Medicine at City of Hope, emphasized how supportive care through PM&R aims to ensure patient function. By developing a whole-person approach that focuses on the musculoskeletal and nervous systems, those involved in the field may minimize adverse effects and help patients participate in day-to-day activities more easily. Additionally, Cheng highlighted how this modality can involve the efforts of a comprehensive multidisciplinary team including physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists as well as those involved in disciplines such as integrative medicine, neurology, and orthopedics.

As part of ensuring function in patients who undergo therapy for cancer, Cheng discussed the importance of integrating exercise into their care routines. She highlighted how exercise in preparation for surgery, stem cell transplantation, or other treatment modalities may help patients recover from their treatment more quickly and yield improvements in the pathologic complete responses and other outcomes.

In terms of the next steps for aiding the growth of PM&R across the country, Cheng detailed ongoing plans for a trial assessing the utility of cancer rehabilitation in patients with breast cancer and gynecologic cancer undergoing chemotherapy before surgery. Adopting a catchphrase of “prehab for all,” Cheng said that she wants all patients to be armed with the knowledge of PM&R so that they can gain control over their lives and be able to pursue meaningful activities during their treatment courses.

“I hope that oncologists and rehabilitation physicians alike will see that there’s an opportunity with cancer prehabilitation to enable [patients] to get their cancer treatment, get through it better, and recover better,” Cheng said. “That’s my hope: that this [field] will spread even more like wildfire than it already is.”