Entry id
1_pg7xqrqt
Managing Fatigue to Maintain Quality of Life
As a medical oncologist, one of the most important lessons that I've learned over the years, is that fatigue is a very important component of therapy in patients with any type of cancer. Now we have a lot of scientific evidence that tells us how to negate or how to improve fatigue in our patients. But the first thing that I do when I'm taking my patient through that journey and that first cycle of therapy, I will tell them that it is vital that they incorporate exercise within their normal daily activity, because that's what's going to prevent or reduce fatigue from happening. We need to be able to assess for fatigue regularly. And every time a patient comes to my clinic, I will ask them, are you getting tired? How are you doing your normal daily activities? Are you going to work regularly? Have you reduced the number of hours that you're working?
01:10
Are you doing more home-based working? And if needed, if my patient is still getting fatigued, despite the exercise regimen that I will put them on, do I need to modify medication dosing or the way I'm actually giving it to try and reduce the fatigue, because at the end of the day, you don't want to negatively impact the quality of life, and fatigue is something that will negatively impact the quality of life. I actually tell my patients, please do at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. It could be walking, it could be running. I've given tips such as using little weights around their wrists or around their ankles as a little bit that they can do every day in their normal daily activities, which improves fatigue. Yoga is good for something that I actually encourage my patients to do. 15 minutes of yoga every day is something that we regularly recommend for our patients.
02:04
And if you need to taper up that exercise routine, we tell our patients five to 10 minutes of exercise every day, and increasing it by gradual increments of one minute every day, is something that they could potentially do easily at home. And again, I get my physiotherapist, I get my nursing staff to actually call up my patients to actually find out if they're exercising every day or not. So we're monitoring them in the clinic, we're monitoring them at home, so they know that they need to exercise daily. So I think fatigue is a very, very important component that you should not forget to assess in the clinic. It's a vital component where you tell your patients to exercise, because if they're not fatigued, their impact on their quality of life is not as bad in terms of medications. And of course, if you're not fatigued, you're more likely to take your medications to begin with.
As a medical oncologist, one of the most important lessons that I've learned over the years, is that fatigue is a very important component of therapy in patients with any type of cancer. Now we have a lot of scientific evidence that tells us how to negate or how to improve fatigue in our patients. But the first thing that I do when I'm taking my patient through that journey and that first cycle of therapy, I will tell them that it is vital that they incorporate exercise within their normal daily activity, because that's what's going to prevent or reduce fatigue from happening. We need to be able to assess for fatigue regularly. And every time a patient comes to my clinic, I will ask them, are you getting tired? How are you doing your normal daily activities? Are you going to work regularly? Have you reduced the number of hours that you're working?
01:10
Are you doing more home-based working? And if needed, if my patient is still getting fatigued, despite the exercise regimen that I will put them on, do I need to modify medication dosing or the way I'm actually giving it to try and reduce the fatigue, because at the end of the day, you don't want to negatively impact the quality of life, and fatigue is something that will negatively impact the quality of life. I actually tell my patients, please do at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. It could be walking, it could be running. I've given tips such as using little weights around their wrists or around their ankles as a little bit that they can do every day in their normal daily activities, which improves fatigue. Yoga is good for something that I actually encourage my patients to do. 15 minutes of yoga every day is something that we regularly recommend for our patients.
02:04
And if you need to taper up that exercise routine, we tell our patients five to 10 minutes of exercise every day, and increasing it by gradual increments of one minute every day, is something that they could potentially do easily at home. And again, I get my physiotherapist, I get my nursing staff to actually call up my patients to actually find out if they're exercising every day or not. So we're monitoring them in the clinic, we're monitoring them at home, so they know that they need to exercise daily. So I think fatigue is a very, very important component that you should not forget to assess in the clinic. It's a vital component where you tell your patients to exercise, because if they're not fatigued, their impact on their quality of life is not as bad in terms of medications. And of course, if you're not fatigued, you're more likely to take your medications to begin with.