If you needed yet another reason to turn to meditative exercise practices in the course of cancer treatment, here it is.
A recent, unpublished study that was presented at the 2023 ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Quality Care Symposium, entitled “Virtual Mind–Body Fitness Classes Show Unexpected Benefit in People with Cancer” (Mao et al., 2023), examined the effects of virtual mind-body fitness classes on visits to urgent care or unplanned hospitalizations for cancer patients who were in active treatment and were dealing with moderate or greater fatigue.
While mind-body practices are already recommended for cancer patients to help deal with the symptoms of treatment and its emotional fallout, the results of this study illuminated specific benefits. Those patients who had been assigned to the group given access to virtual live mind-body and fitness classes (called Intergrative Medicine at Home, or IM@Home) had fewer hospitalizations and shorter hospital stays, in addition to fewer visits to urgent care, compared to those subjects who were only given access to pre-recorded online meditation resources (Enhanced Usual Care, or EUC).
This study was run at the renown Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) with 200 cancer patients randomized into the two groups (IM@Home and the stan, which makes the design more solid and increases confidence in the results. Nonetheless, as the lead author Dr. Jun Mao (Chief of Integrative Medicine at MSKCC) stated in the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Currents blog, “I do want to caution that the current trial was designed as an early-phase trial, so we would like to do a larger study with longer follow-up to confirm our results before we are completely confident in the findings.”
A larger study is currently in the works. Dr. Mao would like to explore whether these classes help patients follow through on their treatment plans, and if so, whether these patients also live longer.
The IM@Home group’s classes included a variety of classes (again, quoted from Cancer Currents blog): “Some of the classes taught participants movement-based activities such as yoga, tai chi, and dance therapy; other classes taught meditation-based practices, such as music therapy and mindfulness.” It is already known that exercise during cancer treatment can reduce fatigue, but the researchers felt that part of the success of this study was due to the participants’ ability to choose the level of exertion based on how they were feeling at the time of the class.
As Dr. Mao pointed out, more directed research on this must be done before drawing specific conclusion, but this was a very valuable pilot program, the results of which would not surprise those of us who have made use of various exercise modalities, particularly those with a mind-body angle, for calming ourselves during our cancer journeys.
The more this subject is studied, the greater the chance that cancer centers focusing on whole-patient treatment will be offering such classes to their patients. COVID taught us that there are ways to make classes accessible to people with limited mobility or conditions that may prevent physical travel to classes.
While I believe that attending mind-body oriented classes in person is ideal, this study illustrated that even virtual opportunities can have significant benefits for the patient.
It’s worth pointing out that of the 200 study participants, 91% were female and 77% were white. That is not a diverse spread and reflects the typical clientele at your average yoga studio (based mainly on my personal observations), with the exception being that the average age of these study participants was 60 years. I would be willing to bet that less-represented groups would benefit greatly from the stress relievers offered here and I hope that the researchers expand their subject pool to balance out the participants in their future study.
Regardless, these are intriguing results that underscore the important of mind-body focused classes, and exercise in general, in the well-being and improvement of cancer patients. This study joins a growing list of research that is changing the way that we look at managing cancer treatment side effects.
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REFERENCES:
Reader-Friendly
Windstead, E, Virtual Mind–Body Fitness Classes Show Unexpected Benefit in People with Cancer, Cancer Currents, December 15, 2023:
https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/cancer-currents-blog/2023/mind-body-fitness-cancer-side-effects
Research Study Abstract
Mao, JJ et al., Effect of virtual mind-body fitness program on reduction in unplanned hospitalizations among patients undergoing active cancer treatments: A pragmatic randomized clinical trial, presented at 2023 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, October 28, 2023:
https://meetings.asco.org/2023-asco-quality-care-symposium/15514?presentation=227485#227485 (note: click on “Abstract 473” on right side panel for abstract text)
Frantic Shanti 