The Reality of Exercise After Cancer: Using Lived Experience to Inform Cancer Rehabilitation Intervention

Research has established exercise and physical activity (PA) as effective interventions to improve a variety of cancer-related impairments and outcomes. Despite efforts to facilitate uptake among survivors of cancer, rates of inactivity and disability in this population remain high. Growing evidence suggests that patient-specific contextual (e.g., environmental and personal) factors play important roles in survivors’ ability to integrate exercise behaviors into their lives. In this symposium, we acknowledge and begin to address contextual factors as a current gap in the delivery of exercise in the usual care for survivors of cancer. Through recent research, we will highlight the lived experience of engaging in exercise/PA after cancer, demonstrating how factors such as exercise self-efficacy and fear of falling influence integration of exercise/PA into daily life. Through examination of a community-based intervention to improve exercise behaviors, practical recommendations to incorporate behavioral factors into exercise interventions for survivors of cancer will be made.