New Strategy of Home-Based Exercise during Pandemic COVID-19 in Breast Cancer Patients: A Case Study
Elisa Grazioli, Claudia Cerulli, Ivan Dimauro, Elisa Moretti, Arianna Murri, Attilio Parisi
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed several challenges for the oncology health care system. The need to improve patients’ Quality of Life (QoL) through exercise, which is related to survival and healing, has increased, especially during lockdowns. Technologies are often used to help with patient care as well as to monitor exercise training. This case study, developed during the pandemic period, aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a proposed home-based combined training (CT) regimen, supervised through online lessons, in increasing QoL and fatigue in breast cancer patients undergoing adjuvant therapy. Additionally, we evaluated the effect of exercise on psychological and functional parameters. Methods: Two breast cancer (BC) survivors were required to participate in 2 h/week of supervised and home-based CT for 16 weeks. Results: Improvements were found in the emotional function of QoL (10% in patient A; 70% in patient B) and in all variables of fatigue (physical fatigue 66% in patient A; 33% in patient B). Conclusion: The findings from this study revealed positive effects of CT on QoL and fatigue perception in BC women undergoing therapy. Both patients attended all training sessions with no adverse events, showing the sustainability of this training as an alternative and affordable method that is capable of improving patients’ wellbeing.