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. 2023 Sep 12;31(10):572.
doi: 10.1007/s00520-023-08039-0.

Chemotherapy-related symptoms and exercise adherence in older patients with myeloid neoplasms

Katarina Wang  1 , William Consagra  2 , Marielle Jensen-Battaglia  3 , Amber Kleckner  4 , Ian R Kleckner  4 , Kah Poh Loh  5
Affiliations

Chemotherapy-related symptoms and exercise adherence in older patients with myeloid neoplasms

Katarina Wang et al. Support Care Cancer. .

Abstract

Purpose: Exercise may ameliorate treatment-related symptoms, but older adults have lower exercise adherence compared to their younger counterparts due to treatment-related symptoms.

Methods: We recruited older patients with myeloid neoplasms receiving chemotherapy to a pilot study of a mobile health exercise intervention. Participants entered their steps and resistance data into the app daily, and symptom data twice a week, over an 8-12 week period. In this proof-of-concept analysis, we used a linear mixed-effects model to assess the association of symptoms from the previous week with exercise adherence in the current week among older adults with myeloid neoplasms.

Results: Mean age was 74.3 (SD = 5.0) years (N = 7). At baseline, patients on average walked 2564 daily steps (SD = 1816), which increased to 2967 (SD = 3448) post-intervention. Patients on average performed 3.5 (SD = 2.6) days of resistance training weekly, with mean duration of 21.5 min (SD = 11.6) and rated perceived exertion of 3.68 (SD = 1.78) on a 0-10 scale. Lower average steps in the current week was associated with greater interference with daily activities from pain (β = - 203.13, p = 0.05), memory (β = - 492.29, p = 0.09), numbness (β = - 353.57, p = 0.07), and sadness (β = - 403.03, p = 0.09) in the previous week. Similarly, lower average resistance minutes in the current week were associated with greater pain, sadness, and anxiety in the previous week.

Conclusions: We found that greater pain, sadness, and anxiety were associated with lower exercise adherence. Symptom monitoring and management in older adults with myeloid neoplasms receiving chemotherapy can promote exercise adherence and in turn improve symptoms.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04035499. Registered 7/29/2019.

Keywords: Exercise adherence; Myeloid neoplasms; Older adults; Symptoms.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: Dr. Loh has served as a consultant to Pfizer and Seattle Genetics and has received honoraria from Pfizer. All other authors have no relevant competing interests to report.

Financial interests: We have no financial interests to report.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
A) Line plot of average steps taken each week. The start of a new chemotherapy cycle is denoted by C. B) Line plot of average resistance minutes each week. The start of a new chemotherapy cycle is denoted by C.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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