Rehabilitation of cancer patients, a forgotten need?

Abstract

Disability due to pain in cancer patients may be physical, cognitive, sensory, emotional, developmental, or a combination of these. Pain-related disability in cancer patients is a multifactorial problem that deserves a multifaceted rehabilitation approach. Disability is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. Therefore, rehabilitation encompasses a series of treatments with the aim of helping people to reenter society with the best possible skills, to live through their lifespan appropriately, to survive in the face of a disabling pathology, and to overcome its handicaps sufficiently to go home and lead as normal a life as possible for as long as possible. The rehabilitation of a cancer patient can be distinguished into at least three broad components: (i) therapies centred on the recovery/improvement of motor system failure or weakness, (ii) physical therapies mostly addressed at the non-­pharmacological control of pain, and (iii) occupational therapies used to promote the patient’s empowerment and, possibly, to facilitate the patient’s return home and to work. Maintenance of motricity and physical therapies to control pain in the last phase of life and during palliation is to be considered more centred on psychophysical aspects rather than on achieving a real improvement in mobility and pain control.