A home-based intervention developed by St James’s Hospital and the Regional Oncology Programme Office, Dublin to help cancer survivors manage fatigue, one of the most common, distressing, and disabling difficulties people face after cancer treatment, has now been made available to patients by Roche Products (Ireland ) Ltd in UHG, the Galway Clinic, and Portiuncula.
Dr Sonya Collier and Dr Anne-Marie O Dwyer from the St James’s Hospital psychological medicine service have developed the first known self-help programme for persistent cancer-related fatigue, a severe condition that remains for longer than six months following the end of cancer treatment and can affect approximately 25 per cent of cancer survivors.
Entitled Understanding and Managing Persistent Cancer-Related Fatigue, the easy-to-use manual and accompanying DVD is structured on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT ) techniques with eight different chapters tackling issues such as inactivity, low mood, sleep problems, worry, and reclaiming life after cancer.
Irish rugby star Gordan D’Arcy and well-known TV personalities Eddie Hobbs, Rachel Allen, Kathryn Thomas, Miriam O’Callaghan, and Pat Kenny, along with cancer experts and former patients from St James’s Hospital Dublin, all contributed to the accompanying DVD to introduce, summarise, and explain each chapter of the manual.
Persistent cancer-related fatigue can continue up to ten years after recovery. However it is arguably one of the most important untreated symptoms of cancer. It can have a serious impact on normal life, preventing people from returning to work, leisure activities, and socialising with friends. It may also cause people to feel a range of emotions including sadness, anxiety, irritability and, in some cases, guilt or depression.
Dr Collier, principal clinical psychologist at St James’s Hospital, explained the manual is specifically designed for patients who are disease-free and who completed their treatment for cancer at least six months ago.
“Psychological problems can come to the fore when treatment finishes,” she said. “The most common problem that occurs after a person has been discharged from oncology services is fear of recurrence. It becomes their ‘Damocles sword’, a constant fear that hangs over them, causing anxiety and distress which can feed into their fatigue.
“The support they received during chemo and radiotherapy is no longer available, and there can be an increased need for psycho-oncology services at that time. However many cancer survivors have great difficulty in accessing psycho-oncology services, whether they are too fatigued or unable to travel to the hospital.
“While this home-based intervention does not replace one-to-one therapy, we hope that it will provide people from all over Ireland with information and strategies that may help them to better understand and manage their persistent cancer-related fatigue,” Dr Collier added. “We are grateful to Roche Products Ireland for facilitating access to the booklet and DVD for regional oncology units and their patients nationwide.”
The programme has already received praise from international experts in the field of psycho-oncology. Professor William Breitbart, chief of the psychiatry service at the world’s oldest and largest private cancer centre, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, described the programme as “incredibly comprehensive, and extraordinarily helpful, full of practical information and interventions”.
Persistent cancer-related fatigue does require multi-disciplinary support, therefore the programme is only recommended for patients who are disease free and who have finished their treatment for cancer at least six months ago. It is not available to the general public. Further information on the programme is available on 01 6452946.
