Turkish Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 2007 , Vol 53 , Num 2

The Essence of Rehabilitation of Patients with Cancer

Sibel Ünsal 1 ,Meltem Aras 2
1 Ankara Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Training and Research Hospital, Ankara
2 Ankara Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi, Ankara, Türkiye

Cancer rehabilitation is a concept that is defined by the patient and involves helping a person with cancer to obtain maximum physical, social, psychologic, and vocational functioning within the limits imposed by the disease and its treatment. Attention to the functional problems of cancer patients is relevant at any point in the diagnostic and therapeutic continuum (e.g., from diagnosis to treatment planning, treatment, post-treatment, recurrence, and end of life) and rehabilitation interventions are appropriate for all of these individuals who are living with cancer. Rehabilitation is unlikely to restore a premorbid level of function but provide a reasonable degree of independence. The ultimate goal of cancer rehabilitation is to enhance the quality of life of the cancer patient. The options for delivering rehabilitation services to the patients with cancer diagnosis include inpatient rehabilitation, outpatient rehabilitation, consultation services during acute care, home-health therapy services or extended care facilities and palliative care services. In this article; the need, principles and the outcome of cancer rehabilitation are briefly rewieved. 

Keywords : Kanser rehabilitasyonu, son durum