Cancer patients are increasingly seeking assistance of people who hold physical therapy jobs to address side effects, according to a published report.
Breast cancer survivor Julie Silver, 38, had surgery and chemotherapy, like other cancer patients, and she later became very sick, WBUR reports. Herself a doctor, she then realized that patients who have undergone intense cancer treatment with the use of toxic and invasive methods should undergo rehabilitative therapy.
"For example, a woman who has a mastectomy, she might have chemo, radiation, to reconstruct the breast she might have a muscle transplant," Silver told the news source. "So she is going to have a lot of scarring, weakness, she may have loss of range of motion. She'll be in a lot of pain."
She said she had testing that revealed she was performing as if she was in her 60s rather than in her 30s. The cancer treatment aged her three decades in a matter of months.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, physical therapists help their patients recover from surgery and illness by addressing pain issues and enhancing range of motion.