Sunday, February 17, 2008

The development of a cancer rehabilitation research program


Last Friday we had a meeting with representatives of a number of health care and research organisations to bring the Alp d’Huzes Cancer Rehabilitation (A-CaRe) program further towards completion. Researchers from the VU, the Amsterdam and Utrecht University Medical Centres, the Netherlands Cancer Institute, the Telematica Institute, and the Veldhoven Hospital met at our VUmc campus to discuss progress and to plan the completion of the program proposal. I have reported on the Alp d’Huzes program initiative here before. Alp d-Huzes is a foundation to raise money for cancer research, The main or at least most striking activity of Alp D’Huzes is a yearly sponsored cycling even at the famous Alp d’Huez mountain (see ).
The A-CaRe program will focus on investigating cancer rehabilitation programs for different groups of cancer patients, based on physical training, including strength training and endurance training to fight fatigue, improve functioning and quality of life. The A-Care will exist of a clinical research track with four trials to develop and evaluate different interventions, an implementation and patient facilitation track to explore and promote opportunities for larger scale dissemination of interventions that have proven effective, and a public relation track to communicate about the progress and merits of the project to patients, health professionals and the general public.
We are now in the later stages of completion of the proposal, seeking adjustment between the different tracks and trials, agreement on the main outcome parameters and measurement instruments, and a good system to communicate between partners within this comprehensive program.
We aim at starting this program within the next few months.

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