Episode 10 – Jeff Vallance: Non Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Rock-climbing and gynecological cancers and everything in between.

Jeff is a researcher at Athabasca University who looks a physical activity and sedentary behavior in a variety of cancer populations.

We chat about reallocating time to physical activity in Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, how rock-climbing might be beneficial to gynecological cancer survivors and how getting a dog could help with increasing activity! We also have an interesting chat about how increasing cancer patient’s/survivor’s activity is less about the activity we deem is “optimal” and more just providing them with choices and options of activity that they can look to integrate into their lifestyle.

You can find Jeff on Twitter @JeffVallance, or at http://fhd.athabascau.ca/faculty/jvallance/. Look for us at reachbeyondcancer.com or find me on twitter @CiaranFairman.

We talk about Mike Lang in the episode and the great things he’s doing with youth cancer survivors. Find him @mikeylang on Twitter or visit https://about.me/mike.lang to find out more.

Show Notes.

3.00 – NHL – those who meet PA guidelines vs those who don’t  have higher quality of life and reduced fatigue

6.00 – How dangerous sedentary time can be and how to go about changing it.

10.00 – Making smaller changes in activity throughout the day instead of a complete overhaul may  be better to increasing overall levels of activity.

15.00 – How it can be easy to forget what cancer patients/survivors have gone through I terms of treatment and some of the complicaitons that may affect their physical activity habits. Some of the challenges of being a fitness professional and trying to put yourself in the shoes of a patient going through treatment.

18.00 – How that type of people who volunteer for cancer studies can affect the results and our interpretation.

21.00 Some of the challenges with research in this area (funding, review boards etc.).

23.00 – Gynacological cancer survivors, wall climbing and the value of providing choice in terms of how people select a type of exercise.

34.00 – Should we treat cancer survivors different from the general population?

37.00 – Do we need to have a “usual care” group in our exercise interventions with cancer patients/survivors?