Cancer survival rates are currently on the verge of 70% at 5 years since diagnosis. Recent improvements in main cancer therapies including chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery and immunotherapy as well as developments of new biological therapies have significantly improved survival rates but unfortunately, cancer-related side effects continue to affect many patients even years after completion of main treatments. Exercise has been shown to not only ameliorate cancer-related effects before, during and after treatment but also improve disease-free and overall survival rates by decreasing risk factors associated with cancer risk and improving resilience to treatment. In this non-randomised, three-arm study, we aim to assess the effects of three forms of exercise (i.e: Nordic Walking, Aquatic Exercise and Functional Exercise) on physical performance, cancer-related fatigue, health-related quality of life and cancer-specific symptoms in a wide range of cancer survivors.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
45
A 12-week Nordic Walking exercise programme supervised twice weekly
A 12-week water-based exercise training programme supervised twice weekly
A 12-week circuit-based exercise training programme supervised twice weekly
Health-Related Quality of Life
HRQoL measured with the EORTC Quality of Life C30 questionnaire
Time frame: 12 weeks from baseline
Cancer-related fatigue
Cancer-related fatigue as measure with the Brief Fatigue Inventory
Time frame: 12 weeks from baseline
Cardiorespiratory fitness
A steady state cardiopulmonary exercise testing with breath-by-breath analysis and lactate measurement to determine submaximal cardiorespiratory fitness
Time frame: 12 weeks from baseline
Estimated one-repetition maximum
Estimated maximal muscle strength using a linear Encoder for two main muscle groups: i) chest and ii) quads
Time frame: 12 weeks from baseline
Lower limb muscle endurance
Lower limb muscle endurance measured as the maximum number of sit-to-stand repetitions performed in 30 seconds
Time frame: 12 weeks from baseline
Functional capacity
Walking distance covered during a self-pace 6 minute walk test
Time frame: 12 weeks from baseline
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