The Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) is encouraging Barbadians to take a multi-disciplinary, integrated approach to cancer care.
During a break in BAMP’s annual conference yesterday, themed A Holistic Approach to Cancer Care”, being held at Sandals Royal, Maxwell Coast Road, Christ Church, president Dr Lynda Williams said she did not see the fight against cancer as a never-ending one.
“Cancer is not a single disease and that’s something we need to understand. So when you say cancer keeps evolving, there are many different cancers involving all the different systems of the body. It’s not one disease, it’s not one mechanism and so we have to try to target it through many different mechanisms,” she said.
Williams noted that research showed the number of drugs and treatments for the disease had vastly increased over the past five years, which was a great sign.
“There’s so many different modalities, so many different surgeries have evolved. We’ve got robotic surgery, all sorts of laparoscopic techniques and we’re constantly improving what we do. So our way of targeting cancer has to involve this sort of team approach.
“We may not have everything that we need to fight here in Barbados, but we have access now through virtual means to so many different professions, as is evident by our conference today where many of our presenters are presenting from abroad.”
She added: “So we have all the access to this knowledge, but we must use it. We must come together and use it, and if we are short in one aspect in one Caribbean country, we can share resources to build up what is available to patients with cancer across the region.”
Exercise
However, the BAMP president made it clear there was more to cancer treatment than surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, as the conference also explored topics such as the benefits of physiotherapy, exercise and nutrition.
One of the virtual presenters, physiologist and exercise oncology researcher Dr Christina Dieli-Conwright, said a few minutes of exercise a day could make a difference in those who were diagnosed with cancer.
“So, minimally speaking, there is evidence to suggest that even just taking
five minutes an hour during wakeful hours to just get up, whether it be walking up and down a hallway for five minutes, standing up and sitting down for five minutes . . . actually can regulate glucose, which is pretty profound,” she pointed out.
Dieli-Conwright said it was well known how detrimental it was being bed- or chair-ridden for long periods, though the challenge was motivation.
She suggested finding something the patient liked to do and creating an exercise plan around that activity.
Williams said it was important to explore every avenue as the cancer rates and deaths were on the increase in Barbados and the region. She said Dieli-Conwright’s presentation showed the importance of exercise and how it improved cognition, physical strength and muscle mass, and how much exercise was important to cancer survival.
“We can do that, build on that, into things that we like to do, so that we can try to give greater muscle strength and stability to the person who may be struggling to maintain muscle mass. Obviously it helps if you come from a [background] where exercise is integrated in your lifestyle before you got a diagnosis of cancer, but even if you didn’t have that lifestyle beforehand, we are, as physicians, going to integrate that with all of the other modalities.
“That’s the reason for our conference – to help our physicians understand how important it is to integrate exercise, diet, mental health, care, all of these things into patient care. So, all of the traditional things plus the health alternatives.”
She said risk factors such as diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension and abdominal obesity all increased the likelihood of cancer, and urged men in particular to get regular check-ups as early detection was key. (CA)
The post Bajans urged to rethink cancer care appeared first on nationnews.com.