Rehabilitation of cancer patients - research perspectives

Rehabilitation of cancer patients include a broad range of activities aimed at information, counselling, advices on possible change of lifestyle and behaviour, psychological support, social welfare questions, ways of coping with side-effects of the anti-carcinogenic treatment given and additional treatment of numerous clinical problems. The change in the age distribution combined with the growing number of cancer survivors and the scarce economic resources allocated to 'aftert-reatment' clinical follow-up of cancer patients, even in the Scandinavian countries characterised by their public tax financed health system, emphasize the need for screening of rehabilitation needs among cancer patients. There is a need to identify patients in need for psychological and social intervention. However, this intervention among cancer patients in need has to be based on results achieved in clinical studies. This paper gives a brief introduction to the field of rehabilitation research and indicates a number of areas in which research would be of benefit for the clinical organisation of rehabilitation activities. These areas include the implication of social inequality, a characterisation of cancer patients who rehabilitate successfully, the gender perspective in rehabilitation, the age perspective, how to establish cancer disease specific rehabilitation modules, family and community aspects of rehabilitation, the dilemma between individual responsibility for lifestyle changes and feelings of guilt and the need for models which can determine the best timing of the intervention among cancer patients.