Outpatient Cancer Rehabilitation Services
Our cancer rehabilitation specialists work with you to help you achieve your physical well-being goals. Together, we work to maximize your independence. We recognize that cancer and its treatment can cause weakness, fatigue, pain, difficulty with memory and concentration, and other symptoms. We know it can be difficult to carry on with your daily activities during cancer treatment. Ways we can help include rehabilitation to increase your strength, increase your balance, improve your ability to carry out day-to-day activities, and help you return to a hobby, sport, or work.
Our cancer rehabilitation team includes specialists from many areas. We all collaborate on a personalized rehabilitation plan that focuses on your goals. Our patients have had many types of cancer and have seen us at any time in their care—from diagnosis to post-treatment survivorship to end of life. The following services may be offered at the main Huntsman Cancer Institute location and/or at our satellite locations.
For more information regarding additional therapy services, locations, and contact information, please visit University of Utah Therapy Services. Services may change over time.
Meet Our Team Members
Therapy Teams
Certified Lymphedema Therapists
A certified lymphedema therapist is typically either a physical therapist or an occupational therapist. Lymphedema is a specific type of swelling that may occur after lymph node surgery or radiation to the lymph nodes, although other conditions can also cause lymphedema. While there is no cure for this condition, lymphedema therapy can help you reduce and manage swelling. Lymphedema therapy involves compression bandages, manual lymphatic drainage (a type of light pressure massage), exercises, and in some cases, a device called a pneumatic compression device.
Lymphedema may occur in the:
- Face and neck
- Inside of the mouth and/or throat (intra-oral)
- Arm, breast, and/or chest wall
- Inner arm
- Abdomen, pelvis, or genitals
- Legs
Pelvic Floor Physical Therapists
A pelvic floor therapist is a physical therapist with extra training and certification in pelvic floor health. The pelvic floor includes muscles and tissue that help control bowel, bladder and sexual function. Cancer can cause pelvic pain or tightness, such as in the groin, hips, buttocks, rectal, vaginal, or tailbone areas. This type of pain can occur after gynecologic, prostate, bladder and colorectal cancer treatment. Other types of cancers may also cause changes in pelvic health.
A pelvic floor therapist can help release any scar tissues from prior surgery and/or radiation therapy. The therapist will also help you re-train your pelvic floor muscles to contract and relax appropriately. Pelvic floor therapy can address these common conditions:
- Bowel or bladder dysfunction, such as urgency, incontinence (leaking), trouble emptying
- Pelvic pain
- Dyspareunia, or pain with sexual intercourse
Occupational Therapy
An occupational therapist (OT) helps people engage in their daily activities. These therapists use a holistic approach to help patients address concerns that impact their everyday routines. Occupational therapy may include attending to self-care, managing symptoms (such as fatigue), improving motivation, or addressing thinking impairments. Our goal is to develop practical strategies to help you improve your daily activities and quality of life. Common conditions and interventions are:
- Changes to memory and concentration that make it challenging for you to manage daily responsibilities (medications, finances, household duties, school, and work), sometimes called “chemo brain”
- Modifying lifestyle routines to conserve your energy and allow you to carry out daily activities, despite challenges with fatigue, motivation, mood, and more
- Weakness of the upper extremities and hands, which can impact your ability to grasp objects, dress, type, or use your phone
- Evaluating your needs for adaptive equipment, technology or home modifications (such as a shower chair, modified utensils, technology adaptations for cell phone use, and driving)
Physical Therapy
Our Physical therapists (PT) work with cancer patients to improve their strength, coordination, balance and endurance. They can treat a variety of symptoms and conditions affecting muscles, joints, and your body overall. Common conditions and interventions we see in cancer patients are:
- Difficulty with balance
- Unsteady or altered walking pattern
- Muscle or joint conditions (ex: osteoarthritis, steroid-associated muscle weakness, joint pain after chemotherapy or immunotherapy, back pain from spine metastases, skin and joint tightness after surgery and/or radiation therapy)
- Generalized weakness, deconditioning and fatigue
Speech and Language Therapy: Swallow
A Speech and Language Pathologist (SLP) evaluates your ability to swallow. Cancer and its treatment can directly or indirectly affect the nerves and muscles you use when swallowing. You may also have a special tube through your nose or in your stomach to receive nutrition.
SLPs will prescribe specific exercises and diet recommendations. If part of your treatment for head and neck cancer requires removal of the voice box (larynx), our SLPs will review options for a tracheoesophageal prosthesis (TEP) to help you speak again. They can evaluate, fit, change, and troubleshoot your device to optimize your voice and swallowing.
SLPs often assess and treat with:
- Bedside swallow evaluation
- Modified Barium Swallow Study (also known as a videofluoroscopic swallow study)
- Exercises for your neck and throat muscles
- Safe chewing and swallowing techniques
Speech and Language Therapy: Cognition
Changes in an individual’s ability to speak or communicate, as well as changes in understanding or learning new information, can negatively affect a person’s quality of life. It can alter their ability to work, go to school or lead a “normal” life. A cancer diagnosis and its treatment can be associated with changes in cognition, which is formally known as “cancer-related cognitive impairment.” You may have also heard of it as “chemo brain.”
SLPs can identify which areas of cognition have been impacted and work with patients to improve their cognitive function. The most common cognitive challenges cancer patients face are:
- Attention and/or concentration difficulties: Struggling to concentrate on a conversation, needing to read information multiple times, being unable to multi-task, losing your train of thought or having a short attention span (“spacing out”)
- Problems finding words: Not being able to think of or speak specific words to clearly express your thoughts, feelings, and opinions in conversation
- Memory problems: Difficulty learning new information and retrieving information you previously learned, such as understanding a new software program, remembering what was discussed during a doctor’s appointment, or remembering names, dates, and other important details
- Processing information slowly: Slower reaction times, taking longer to process smaller amounts of information, and difficulty reading and following instructions, taking clear notes, understanding what your doctor is explaining, or keeping up with conversation
- Cognitive fatigue: Managing the above symptoms may cause you to feel tired or drained and make it challenging to think or communicate clearly, causing you to feel irritable
SLPs evaluate for the above symptoms and develop an individualized cognitive rehabilitation plan. This plan will typically have two components:
- Restorative treatment: The goal is to improve and train the cognitive system to function in a wide range of activities
- Compensatory treatment: Examples include memory notebooks or learning self-cuing strategies to help you carry out your daily activities despite your symptoms
Additional Services
POWER Exercise Specialist
The Personal Optimism with Exercise Recovery (POWER) Program is a supervised exercise program available to all Huntsman Cancer Institute patients. Regular physical exercise can improve symptoms across cancer diagnoses and can even improve survival rates in certain cancers.
The cancer rehabilitation specialists listed above work closely with the POWER program to help promote physical exercise among all patients, regardless of where they are along their cancer care journey.
Learn more about the POWER Program.
Wellness & Integrative Health Center
The Wellness & Integrative Health Center offers a number of services such as acupuncture, massage, music therapy and nutritional counseling. These services can improve your quality of life while you are undergoing cancer treatment and can help treatment-related side effects.
Learn more about the services offered by the Wellness & Integrative Health Center.
