Development of the Cancer Exercise Toolkit: a website for exercise professionals using a co-design approach (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Dennett ◽  
Clarice Y Tang ◽  
April Chiu ◽  
Christian Osadnik ◽  
Catherine L Granger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Exercise Therapy ◽  
Safety Assessment ◽  
Exercise Prescription ◽  
Design Approach ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Determinants Of Implementation

BACKGROUND Access to exercise therapy for cancer survivors is poor. Professional development to support exercise professionals to deliver these interventions is needed. Few online resources exist for exercise professionals to address this issue. OBJECTIVE To develop and evaluate a freely available online toolkit to support exercise professionals working with cancer survivors. METHODS A two-phase, experience-based co-design approach was completed to develop and evaluate the online toolkit. The two phases were: 1) needs identification and co-design of resources and platform and 2) pilot evaluation. Four co-design workshops were conducted, transcribed and thematically analysed to identify key elements for the toolkit. For the pilot evaluation, a customised survey was distributed to exercise professionals at baseline and 3-months following launch of the online toolkit to determine its usability, utility and effectiveness on exercise professional’s knowledge, confidence and behaviour (Determinants of Implementation Behaviour Questionnaire). Results were described using medians and interquartile range and changes calculated using non-parametric tests. Website analytics described site usage after initial evaluation. RESULTS Twenty-five exercise professionals participated in co-designing eight key elements of the online Cancer Exercise Toolkit: Homepage, Getting Started, Screening and Safety, Assessment, Exercise Prescription, Education, Locations and Resources. For the pilot evaluation, 320 respondents (87% physiotherapists) from 26 countries completed the survey at baseline, with 58 exercise professionals completing follow-up surveys at 3-months. Exercise professional’s knowledge, skills and confidence in delivering exercise therapy for cancer survivors increased at 3-months from baseline (follow-up median 6 points on a 1 to 7 Likert scale, IQR 4 to 6). Most participants (76%) agreed or strongly agreed they would recommend the toolkit to colleagues. In the 6-months following the pilot evaluation, the toolkit received an average of 866 views per month. CONCLUSIONS The co-designed online Cancer Exercise Toolkit was a useful resource for exercise professionals that may increase their knowledge, skills and confidence to provide exercise therapy to cancer survivors. CLINICALTRIAL not applicable

scholarly journals COVID-19 and radiation oncology: the experience of a two-phase plan within a single institution in central Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana Caravatta ◽  
Consuelo Rosa ◽  
Maria Bernadette Di Sciascio ◽  
Andrea Tavella Scaringi ◽  
Angelo Di Pilla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Phase I ◽  
Phase Ii ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
Tumor Board ◽  
Radiotherapy Planning ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Hospital Environments ◽  
Two Phases

Abstract Background COVID-19 in Italy has led to the need to reorganize hospital protocols with a significant risk of interruption to cancer treatment programs. In this report, we will focus on a management model covering the two phases of the COVID-19 emergency, namely lockdown-phase I and post-lockdown-phase II. Methods The following steps were taken in the two phases: workload during visits and radiotherapy planning, use of dedicated routes, measures for triage areas, management of suspected and positive COVID-19 cases, personal protective equipment, hospital environments and intra-institutional meetings and tumor board management. Due to the guidelines set out by the Ministry of Health, oncological follow-up visits were interrupted during the lockdown-phase I; consequently, we set about contacting patients by telephone, with laboratory and instrumental exams being viewed via telematics. During the post-lockdown-phase II, the oncological follow-up clinic reopened, with two shifts operating daily. Results By comparing our radiotherapy activity from March 9 to May 4 2019 with the same period in 2020 during full phase I of the COVID-19 emergency, similar results were achieved. First radiotherapy visits, Simulation Computed Tomography and Linear Accelerator treatments amounted to 123, 137 and 151 in 2019 compared with 121, 135 and 170 in 2020 respectively. There were no cases of COVID-19 positivity recorded either in patients or in healthcare professionals, who were all negative to the swab tests performed. Conclusion During both phases of the COVID-19 emergency, the planned model used in our own experience guaranteed both continuity in radiotherapy treatments whilst neither reducing workload nor interrupting treatment and, as such, it ensured the safety of cancer patients, hospital environments and staff.

scholarly journals Integrating Physical Activity Into Clinical Cancer Care

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-223
Author(s):  
Nathan H. Parker ◽  
Katherine R. Arlinghaus ◽  
Craig A. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Goal Setting ◽  
Cancer Care ◽  
Exercise Prescription ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Physical Activity Guidelines ◽  
Important Target ◽  
Health And Well Being

Physical activity is an important target for improving health and well-being among cancer survivors. Cancer clinicians are uniquely positioned to promote physical activity among survivors through follow-up visits for treatment planning and surveillance. Providers should prioritize assessment of guideline-concordant physical activity and facilitate achievement of physical activity guidelines through exercise prescription, goal setting, addressing barriers, and capitalizing on support systems.

scholarly journals Adherence to follow-up recommendation guidelines in long term breast cancer survivors, a SURBCAN cohort analysis using administrative databases

The Breast ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. S80-S81
Author(s):  
P. Santiá ◽  
A. Jansana ◽  
T. Sanz ◽  
I. de la Cura ◽  
M. Padilla-Ruiz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Breast Cancer Survivors ◽  
Cohort Analysis ◽  
Administrative Databases

scholarly journals Mixed methods assessment of impact on health awareness in adult childhood cancer survivors after viewing their personalized digital treatment summary and follow-up recommendations

BMC Cancer ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helena M. Linge ◽  
Cecilia Follin
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Health Literacy ◽  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Childhood Cancer ◽  
Childhood Cancer Survivors ◽  
The Self ◽  
Health Related ◽  
Treatment Summary

Abstract Background The survival rate after childhood cancer has improved to 80%. The majority of childhood cancer survivors (CCS) will experience late complications which require follow up care, including access to their individual cancer treatment summary. The need to understand CCS needs and preferences in terms of ways to receive information e.g. digitally, becomes important. This study aims to through a mixed methods approach a) examine how CCS’ health awareness was impacted by viewing their personalized digital treatment summary and follow-up recommendations, b) explore E health literacy, and c) determine self-reported survivorship experiences and health care usage. Methods Survivors with a recent visit to the Late effects clinic were eligible for the study (n = 70). A representative sample of primary diagnoses were invited (n = 28). 16 CCS were enrolled. Recent medical visits, e health literacy and impressions of the digital treatment summary were assessed by a survey in conjunction with viewing their digital treatment summary on a computer screen. Their experience of reading and understanding their digital treatment summary in the context of their health related survivorship experiences were assessed in focus groups. The transcribed data was analyzed with conventional qualitative content analysis. Results The self-reported medical problems largely reflected that, only 6,3% reported no cancer-related reasons for seeking medical attention. Of the medical specialists, the primary care physician was the most frequently visited specialist (68.8%). High E health literacy was not associated with treatment features but with educational level (p = 0.003, CI: 3.9–14.6) and sex (p = 0.022, CI: − 13.6- -1.3). All survivors graded the digital treatment summary above average in terms of being valuable, agreeable and comprehensive. The focus group interviews identified three themes: 1) The significance of information, 2) The impact of awareness; and 3) Empowerment. Conclusions Reading the treatment summaries furthered the survivors understanding of their health situation and consequently aided empowerment. A digital treatment summary, provided by knowledgeable health care professionals, may increase the self-managed care and adherence to follow-up recommendations. Further insights into e health literacy in larger samples of CCS may determine to what extent health-related information can be communicated via digital resources to this at risk population.

A Lightweight Formalism for Reference Lifetimes and Borrowing in Rust

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-73
Author(s):  
David J. Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Memory Management ◽  
Programming Model ◽  
Type System ◽  
Control Flow ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Type Checking ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
Reference Implementation ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Complex Features

Rust is a relatively new programming language that has gained significant traction since its v1.0 release in 2015. Rust aims to be a systems language that competes with C/C++. A claimed advantage of Rust is a strong focus on memory safety without garbage collection. This is primarily achieved through two concepts, namely, reference lifetimes and borrowing . Both of these are well-known ideas stemming from the literature on region-based memory management and linearity / uniqueness . Rust brings both of these ideas together to form a coherent programming model. Furthermore, Rust has a strong focus on stack-allocated data and, like C/C++ but unlike Java, permits references to local variables. Type checking in Rust can be viewed as a two-phase process: First, a traditional type checker operates in a flow-insensitive fashion; second, a borrow checker enforces an ownership invariant using a flow-sensitive analysis. In this article, we present a lightweight formalism that captures these two phases using a flow-sensitive type system that enforces “ type and borrow safety .” In particular, programs that are type and borrow safe will not attempt to dereference dangling pointers. Our calculus core captures many aspects of Rust, including copy- and move-semantics, mutable borrowing, reborrowing, partial moves, and lifetimes. In particular, it remains sufficiently lightweight to be easily digested and understood and, we argue, still captures the salient aspects of reference lifetimes and borrowing. Furthermore, extensions to the core can easily add more complex features (e.g., control-flow, tuples, method invocation). We provide a soundness proof to verify our key claims of the calculus. We also provide a reference implementation in Java with which we have model checked our calculus using over 500B input programs. We have also fuzz tested the Rust compiler using our calculus against 2B programs and, to date, found one confirmed compiler bug and several other possible issues.

scholarly journals XCOVNet: Chest X-ray Image Classification for COVID-19 Early Detection Using Convolutional Neural Networks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishu Madaan ◽  
Aditya Roy ◽  
Charu Gupta ◽  
Prateek Agrawal ◽  
Anand Sharma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Image Classification ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
X Ray ◽  
The Neural Network ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
Chest X Ray ◽  
Polymerase Chain ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
Active Patients

AbstractCOVID-19 (also known as SARS-COV-2) pandemic has spread in the entire world. It is a contagious disease that easily spreads from one person in direct contact to another, classified by experts in five categories: asymptomatic, mild, moderate, severe, and critical. Already more than 66 million people got infected worldwide with more than 22 million active patients as of 5 December 2020 and the rate is accelerating. More than 1.5 million patients (approximately 2.5% of total reported cases) across the world lost their life. In many places, the COVID-19 detection takes place through reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests which may take longer than 48 h. This is one major reason of its severity and rapid spread. We propose in this paper a two-phase X-ray image classification called XCOVNet for early COVID-19 detection using convolutional neural Networks model. XCOVNet detects COVID-19 infections in chest X-ray patient images in two phases. The first phase pre-processes a dataset of 392 chest X-ray images of which half are COVID-19 positive and half are negative. The second phase trains and tunes the neural network model to achieve a 98.44% accuracy in patient classification.

scholarly journals Changes in the Semantic Construction of Compassion after the Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT®) in Women Breast Cancer Survivors

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edgar González-Hernández ◽  
Daniel Campos ◽  
Rebeca Diego-Pedro ◽  
Rocío Romero ◽  
Rosa Baños ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Breast Cancer Survivors ◽  
Semantic Differential ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Treatment As Usual ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Specific Culture ◽  
Differential Categories

Abstract The growing body of research on compassion has demonstrated its benefits for healthcare and wellbeing. However, there is no clear agreement about a definition for compassion, given the novelty of the research on this construct and its religious roots. The aim of this study is to analyze the mental semantic construction of compassion in Spanish-speaking women breast cancer survivors, and the effects of the Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT®) on the modification of this definition, compared to treatment-as-usual (TAU), at baseline, post-intervention, and six-month follow-up. Participants were 56 women breast cancer survivors from a randomized clinical trial. The Osgood’s Semantic Differential categories (evaluative, potency, and activity scales) were adapted to assess the semantic construction of compassion. At baseline, participants had an undefined idea about compassion. The CBCT influenced subjects’ semantic construction of what it means to be compassionate. Findings could lead to future investigations and compassion programs that adapt to a specific culture or population.

scholarly journals Ultrasound Screening for Thyroid Carcinoma in Childhood Cancer Survivors: A Case Series

2008 ◽  
Vol 93 (12) ◽  
pp. 4840-4843 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enrico Brignardello ◽  
Andrea Corrias ◽  
Giuseppe Isolato ◽  
Nicola Palestini ◽  
Luca Cordero di Montezemolo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thyroid Carcinoma ◽  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Childhood Cancer ◽  
Outcome Measure ◽  
Childhood Cancer Survivors ◽  
Ultrasound Screening ◽  
Thyroid Ultrasound ◽  
Main Outcome Measure ◽  
Head Neck

Context: Childhood cancer survivors need regular monitoring into young adulthood and beyond, because they are at risk for developing late-onset complications of cancer therapy, including second malignancies. Objective: This study focuses on the use of thyroid ultrasound to screen for thyroid carcinoma in a population of childhood cancer survivors. Patients: A total of 129 subjects who had received radiotherapy to the head, neck, or upper thorax for a pediatric cancer were studied in the setting of a long-term follow-up unit. Design: Thyroid ultrasound usually began 5 yr after radiotherapy and was repeated every third year, if negative. Median follow-up time since childhood cancer diagnosis was 15.8 yr (range 6.1–34.8 yr). Solid thyroid nodules were found in 35 patients. Fine-needle aspiration was performed in 19 patients, of which 14 had nodules above 1 cm. Main Outcome Measure: The main outcome measure was the finding of not palpable thyroid cancers. Results: Cytological examination of specimens diagnosed papillary carcinoma in five patients who underwent surgery. The cytological diagnosis of papillary thyroid carcinoma was confirmed in all cases by histological examination. Notably, only two of these patients had palpable nodules; the other three were smaller than 1 cm and were detected only by ultrasound. However, histological examination showed nodal metastases in two of these. Conclusions: Although ultrasound screening for thyroid cancer in the general population is not cost effective and could lead to unnecessary surgery, due to false positives, we believe that in childhood cancer survivors who received radiotherapy involving the head, neck, or upper thorax, it would be worthwhile.

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