Doing sports when you have cancer makes its way to France. But a large majority of patients, tired by disease and treatment, are unaware that specific physical activity programs exist, as reported by the National Federation CAMI Sport & Cancer.
It is now well known that physical activity practiced on a daily basis reduces the risk of developing many chronic diseases, including cancers. For example, the Inca states that regular physical activity helps reduce the risk of developing colon, breast, endometrial or lung cancer. Sport is also one of the best ways to improve the survival of sick people during and after an anti-cancer treatment, as well as their quality of life (anxiety, depression, sleep, body image, feeling tired).
It is also necessary that patients with cancer have the desire and do not encounter any brake to its practice. This is what the National Federation of CAMI Sport & Cancer wanted to know, which carried out a survey called PODIUM * among 1544 patients and 894 health professionals. The results show that if 3 out of 4 patients practice physical activity despite their cancer, 13% have stopped because of their illness. Fatigue is the first reason for this abandonment, followed by lack of courage, pain but also the ideas received on the importance of rest in case of fatigue.
Patients with too little information on this topic
The most affected treatment is chemotherapy, probably because of its side effects badly borne by the patients. The latter are variable according to the medicines used, the dosages and the persons but they are generally related to hair loss, nausea and vomiting, muscle or joint pain or even intense fatigue. But the CAMI Sport & Cancer evokes a recurrent brake although little known: the ignorance of programs of physical activity designed specifically for the patients.
Indeed, "barely 55% of patients know of their existence, and only between one third and half of the health professionals," she says. This is the reason why the practice of physical activity despite cancer is the result of a personal approach for the overwhelming majority of respondents (79%), of whom 17% started with the diagnosis of Their cancer. "Just over half of the patients have been advised by a hospital doctor, whom they consider to be the most legitimate person to do so," the Federation added.
Sport as an official non-drug therapy
For patients who fear to reconcile these two aspects, the National Federation CAMI Sport & Cancer founded in 2000 the method Médiété to answer their specificities. Its goal is "to allow patients to benefit from the therapeutic contributions of physical activity to cancer, to reclaim their bodies and enjoy a regular practice". Courses are taught in town or in the hospital, by sports-medicine educators trained through a university degree "Sport et Cancer", in about 60 centers in some twenty departments.
More generally, CAMI Sport & Cancer stands for a true recognition of physical activity and sports in cancerology. Namely a management as a non-drug therapy, in addition to a conventional treatment. A wish shared by the respondents, patients as caregivers. "Because the medical benefits are undoubtedly translated into economic benefits for the community," she argues. A first step has already been taken in this direction, since in 2011 the High Authority of Health (HAS) recognized it as such.
* First national survey on recommendations and psychosociological and physiological determinants of the practice of physiological activity in oncology and hematology. Study carried out online and on paper by CAMI Sport et Cancer with the support of AMGEN from 1 June to 15 July 2015 among 1554 people with cancer (67% breast cancer) and 894 health professionals (52 % Oncologists / hematologists).