There is increasing evidence that exercise lowers the risk of developing cancer, improves survival after a cancer diagnosis, and helps ease related health outcomes. However, relatively few cancer patients meet current physical activity guidelines – often because it wasn’t recommended by their oncologist.
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“Observed barriers to clinicians referring patients to exercise programming include lack of awareness of the potential value of exercise in cancer populations, uncertainty regarding the safety or suitability of exercise for a particular patient, lack of awareness regarding available programs to help facilitate exercise in cancer populations, need for education and skills development for making referrals, and a belief that referrals to exercise programming are not within the scope of practice for oncology clinicians,” Kathryn H. Schmitz, PhD, from Penn State University in Hershey and coauthors from the American College of Sports Medicine International Multidisciplinary Roundtable wrote in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Dr. Schmitz and colleagues proposed using the American College of Sports Medicine’s Exercise Is Medicine initiative to address this gap, with a focus on asking physicians to take an assess, revise, and refer approach to recommending exercise.
Noting that there is clear evidence that patients are more likely to exercise if their oncologist recommends that they do so, the authors said a clinician’s silence on the subject of exercise could be interpreted as “tacit approval to maintain inactivity.”
To assess a patient’s level of physical activity, the authors suggested asking patients how many days during the past week they had undertaken physical activity during which their heart beat faster or they breathed harder than normal for more than 30 minutes or how often they had undertaken activity to increase muscle strength.
If the patient can safely exercise without medical supervision, the authors recommend that clinicians advise patients to increase their physical activity to achieve current recommended levels. Clinicians can refer patients to community programs to help ramp up their activity.
However, for patients who may not be able to exercise safely on their own, the authors recommend referring them to an outpatient rehabiliation professional.
“Referral to appropriate and effective programs and follow-up with an assessment of progress (or lack thereof) at subsequent visits can serve as key transition points to change a patient’s behavior and affect their tolerance of or recovery from treatment,” they wrote.
The authors stressed that oncology clinicians were not expected to prescribe specific levels of exercise or to perform extensive screening and triage of patients based on their fitness.
“Oncology clinicians, however, play a vital role in telling the patient that it is important to exercise and pointing patients in the right direction to make that happen,” they wrote.
The American College of Sports Medicine International Multidisciplinary Roundtable was funded by the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Cancer Society, and other groups. Four authors declared grant support for participating in the study. One declared private industry funding unrelated to the study. No other conflicts of interest were declared.
SOURCE: Schmitz K et al. CA Cancer J Clin. 2019 Oct 16. doi: 10.3322/caac.21579.