Effectiveness of Programmed Deep Breathing Exercises on Reducing the Level of Fatigue During External Radiation Therapy

Abstract

CONTEXTCancer related fatigue is the most common symptom described by cancer patients receiving radiation therapy. AIMTo assess the effectiveness of programmed deep breathing exercises on reducing the level of fatigue during external radiation therapy in cancer patients in some selected hospitals of Guwahati, Assam. SETTINGS AND DESIGNExperimental, pretest-post-test control group designed to select 60 cancer patients in Dr. B. Barooah Cancer Institute and North East Cancer Hospital and Research Institute, Guwahati. MATERIALS AND METHODSSimple random sampling to select 30 patients in experimental and 30 in control group, the experimental group was given deep breathing exercises for 5 days and level of fatigue was assessed by Cancer Fatigue Scale for both the groups. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USEDSPSS Version 15. Frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, paired 't' test, Chi-square test. RESULTSResults suggested that irrespective of age, sex, marital status, education, occupation, religion, diagnosis, stage of cancer, duration of radiation therapy, all cancer patients developed fatigue and significant difference was found between the control group and the experimental group after the implementation of deep breathing exercises in all the three subscales of radiation induced fatigue, physical (p=0.03), affective (p=0.01) and cognitive (p=0.02). Age (p=0.01), stage of cancer (p=0.03) and duration of radiation therapy (p=0.02) were significantly associated with the level of fatigue. CONCLUSIONDeep breathing exercises are an effective intervention in reducing fatigue among cancer patients and can be effectively utilized by oncology nurses to improve quality of life. KEYWORDSCancer, Fatigue, Radiation Induced Fatigue, Radiation Therapy, Cancer Fatigue Scale, Deep Breathing Exercises. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE:Devi R, Saharia HK. Effectiveness of programmed deep breathing exercises on reducing the level of fatigue during external radiation therapy in cancer patients.

Effectiveness of Relaxation Breathing Exercise on fatigue in gynecological cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy

“…Therefore, the researchers concluded that the four times RBE significantly alleviates fatigue in patients with gynaecological cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Devi [25] also reported that programmed deep breathing exercises reduced the level of fatigue in patients with cancer during external radiation therapy. This finding is also similar to that in the research conducted by Kim SD and Kim HS [28] on the effects of RBE on fatigue in patients with leukaemia undergoing hematopoietic transplant, although the intervention was conducted for 6 weeks once a day for 30 min.…”

“…RBE is a conscious act to deeply and slowly regulate breathing to achieve relaxation [22,23] and consists of physical exercise combined with breathing exercise that can be independently performed by patients [24,25]. RBE affects the stress response system and relaxes the mind and body when energy consumption is reduced or none is expended at all [26].…”

Using Pranayama and Deep Breathing Exercises to Reduce Cancer-Related Fatigue and Insomnia During Radiotherapy: A Randomized Controlled Study

“…There are studies showing that breathing exercises are effective in reducing fatigue in cancer patients [14,25,34,47,48]. Devi et al determined that deep breathing exercises reduced fatigue in patients receiving radiotherapy [42].…”

“…Both pranayama and deep breathing exercises are easy to learn. They can be used individually or as a group at anytime and anywhere and are exercises that can be done without creating stress on the person and without consuming too much energy [14,42,47,48].…”

“…Descriptive characteristics questionnaire: This form contained seven questions regarding the patients' descriptive characteristics (age, educational status, type of surgery etc.) and was created by the researchers in line with the literature [14,23,32,42].…”