Evaluation of cancer rehabilitation in Austria

Excerpt

Today, in Austria there are more than 600 beds for inpatient cancer rehabilitation which has become an important issue in the management of cancer patients [1, 2]. Cancer and its treatment can lead to pain, fatigue, nutritional deficits, and loss of muscle mass and decreased muscular strength and endurance capacity, impaired flexibility, decreased mobility, polyneuropathy, hand–foot syndrome, mucositis, lymphedema, incontinence, sexual dysfunction, cognitive deficits, dysthymia, and depression. As survival rates and survival time of cancer patients are increasing, cancer rehabilitation—using a rehabilitation process to counteract these sequelae and side effects—is an important part in the treatment and care of cancer patients with the goal to improve functional status (physical, mental, and psychosocial functions), quality of life, and participation [1, 2]. Therefore, rehabilitation centers offer multidisciplinary treatment programs with different treatment options, which are adjusted to the patient’s needs including physical modalities and exercise, psycho-oncology, nutrition, and information. Early integration of cancer rehabilitation into the cancer care continuum is important because this can significantly improve the quality of patient-centered programs [1‐4]. …