Cancer Rehabilitation
Physical therapy can improve:
- Range of motion/flexibility
- Strength and endurance
- Cancer-related fatigue
- Numbness/tingling in hands or feet
- Anxiety
- Pain
- Lymphedema risk reduction
- Scar management
- Incontinence/pelvic floor
- Balance
- Osteopenia/osteoporosis
- Shortness of breath
- Quality of life
Breast Cancer Rehabilitation
A physical therapist will evaluate and treat you for the following side effects of breast cancer treatment:
- Incisional tightness
- Axillary (armpit) cording & tightness
- Muscle tightness
- Ribcage stiffness
- Shoulder pain
- Loss of shoulder range of motion
- Loss of strength
- Decreased sensation
- Lymphedema risk
Before surgery, a Physical Therapist can provide:
- Education regarding lymphedema risk reduction practices/lymphedema awareness
- Volumetric measurements
- Range of motion assessment
- Strength testing
- Exercise teaching
- Follow up plan
Following surgery, a Physical Therapist can provide manual therapy and therapeutic exercise to help:
- Decrease pain
- Help with stretching
- Improve strength
- Decrease post-surgical edema or lymphedema
- Address axillary cording
- Improve range of motion
- Decrease shoulder pain or stiffness
- Provide limb surveillance for those at risk for lymphedema
- Enable patients to return to their prior activity level
- Instruct survivors in safe weight training & aerobic exercise for a continued healthy lifestyle