Has Breast Cancer Touched Your Life?

Are you currently a breast cancer patient? Or a survivor? Do you know someone who is? Or someone who did not survive?  Chances are everyone reading this will answer yes to one of these questions. 1 in 8 women developed some form of breast cancer.   The good news is that the survival rate has been improving each year since 1990, thanks in part to early detection and improved treatment techniques.

Exercise is one of the improvements in treatment. Doing regular exercise will cut down your risk of developing the disease, as well as preventing its return, if you're a survivor.  Three to five hours weekly (30-40 min a day) of moderate activity has been shown to give protection from breast cancer.  Physical inactivity may contribute to the breast cancer. Women who are overweight produce and store more estrogen in their bodies. Exposure to estrogen is linked to breast cancer. Obese women have a greater amount of breast tissue, causing it to be more difficult to detect breast tumors, which often times results in late detection.

As a cancer survivor performing regular exercise can help return you back to normal function.  It has been shown that beyond the benefits of weight management, reducing the risk of recurrence and improving range of motion at the surgical site, exercise can aid in a multitude of “symptoms”.  Exercise has been shown to improve mood, raises your self-esteem, and gives you a better body image. Exercise improves muscle tone, strength, and endurance.  After the trauma of surgery, exercise can help reincorporate the body back into a whole. Up to now the focus had been on the breasts.  By performing integrated whole body exercises, postural distortions and muscular compensation can be improved and even reversed. Research has shown that exercise can even help the dreaded “Chemo Brain”.

At Morton Plant Hospital we have a program called Power.  It provides a continuum of care from diagnoses through recovery. A team of individuals including surgeons, oncologists, nurse navigators, counselors, physical therapist and exercise physiologist work together to ensure each patient is getting the optimal treatment.