VIDEO: Wellness program uses exercise to help breast cancer survivors improve outcomes
ORLANDO — Patients with breast cancer who participated in a program focusing on lifestyle medicine principles increased habits that could improve survivorship outcomes, according to a poster presented at the Lifestyle Medicine Conference.
“We know that things like diet, exercise and alcohol intake are all risk factors for cancer recurrence,” Dana E. Haggett, MSN, a nurse practitioner at Massachusetts General Hospital, told Healio.
The PAVING the Path to Wellness program is an online course that teaches the six pillars of lifestyle medicine and is available for survivors of breast cancer.
Haggett and colleagues conducted a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of exercise habits in patients who had completed the program compared with those who had not.
Of 21 participants who completed the program, 53% rated their quality of life as “very good” or “excellent.” Meanwhile, 38% considered their physical health to be “very good,” and 34% described their mental health as “excellent.”
Researchers reported moderate or vigorous exercise for an average of 338 minutes in the PAVING group compared with 153 minutes in the control group.
“Excitingly, the PAVING the Path to Wellness participants were exercising more than the control group and so that is really important because we can see that improves their outcome as a cancer survivor,” Haggett said.
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Haggett D. PAVING the Path to Wellness: Lifestyle medicine to improve outcomes in breast cancer survivors. Presented at: Lifestyle Medicine Conference; Orlando; Oct. 27-30, 2024.
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