What is a...
Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist?
Accredited and registered clinical exercise physiologists are individuals with postgraduate (e.g., Masters and PhD) degrees in clinical exercise science. They are individuals with university obtained theoretical knowledge and extended practical training background working with people with chronic health conditions (e.g., heart disease, pulmonary disease, diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, etc.). Clinical exercise physiologists have the theoretical and practical knowledge, skills, and experience to design and deliver safe exercise programs for high-risk patients who are in various stages of post-event/medical-treatment physical frailty.
About Exercise Physiologists
The current consensus is that exercise treatment of cancer patients needs to be managed and supervised by accredited exercise rehabilitation specialists who:
Understand cancer diagnosis, staging, and treatments.
Understand the phases of cancer care from being first diagnosed until the end of life.
Know the symptoms and side effects of cancer and cancer treatments.
Understand how cancer and its treatment may influence the patient's ability to exercise, and who will use clinical skills to review health status and exercise-related physiological symptom limits before prescribing exercise.
Understand cancer-specific issues that need to be considered to ensure the exercise is safe and suitable.
Use evidence-based practice to develop targeted exercise prescriptions that have been individualised for the patient.
Use appropriately selected types of exercise, intensities (i.e., how hard) and volumes (i.e., how much) throughout the patient's treatment and recovery.
Maximize the safety and benefits of exercise especially when the patient is going through difficult treatments or suffering serious side effects.
Provide cancer-specific exercise education, advice and support to help improve the patient's overall health and well-being through regular exercise.
The Rehab Process
The Referral Pathway
Patients eligibility will be determined by their overall profile and the results of the Cardiopulmonary Exercise Test (CPET) performed by the oncology team at MidCentral Hospital, Palmerston North. The entry criteria are based on patients medical profiles (e.g., type of cancer and other co-morbidities), support networks, and the results of the CPET test.
The number of patients referred per year is determined by the fund-raising amounts. All patients go through numerous graded exercise assessments over six months. These tests are performed at MidCentral DHB (e.g., to determine eligibility for the program) and at the Clinical Exercise Physiology (CEP) Clinic (e.g., as part of the individualised exercise prescription process). The first assessment occurs in week 1 at MidCentral DHB to determine eligibility. The second assessment is scheduled in week 3 with a CEP clinic to design the prehab program (e.g., to improve physical fitness in preparation for the medical treatment process that is going to follow). The next assessment is in week 10 at MidCentral DHB to determine readiness for surgery (if needed). Once the patient has recovered sufficiently from surgery around week 14 a clinical exercise physiology assessment is done to design the post-surgery recovery exercise program. In week 26 the final assessments are done to determine effect of the program on patient’s fitness recovery.