MCHS Cancer Recovery & Rehabilitation Program

If you or someone you love have been through cancer treatments and now have problems you didn’t have before your diagnosis, there is help available. Especially if these problems interfere with your ability to function or with your quality of life, you are a candidate for the MCH Cancer Recovery & Rehabilitation. Cancer rehabilitation can improve your quality of life – whether you are going through treatment now, finished recently or long ago.

The MCHS Cancer Recovery & Rehabilitation Program was formerly known as “The STAR Program”. It is designed to help cancer patients overcome the side effects of cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation.

The program helps cancer patients/survivors in the following ways:

• Empower and give back a sense of control
• Reduce anxiety and common fears
• Provide the knowledge/tools/exercises to help with physical impairments such as neuropathy, pain difficulty swallowing, weakness/fatigue, distress, lymphedema
• Ability to return to independent living
• Provide a better quality of life

The services available through the MCHS Cancer Recovery & Rehabilitation Program include:

• Physical Therapy
  • Increase energy and endurance
  • Alleviate/manage pain
  • Increase strength/decrease weakness
  • Increase balance/decrease falls
  • Treat lymphedema
  • Treat sensory problems/neuropathy
  • Improve range of motion
• Occupational Therapy
  • Improve shoulder range of motion
  • Alleviate/manage shoulder and upper arm pain
  • Improve ability to perform activities of daily living (dressing/bathing/driving, etc.)
• Speech Therapy
  • Improve speech and swallowing
  • Improve cognitive skills (memory, problem solving for activities of daily living skills
• Nutritional Counseling
  • Improve nutrition for overall health
  • Diet recommendations for changes in taste due to treatments
• Mental Health Counseling
  • Reduce anxiety and depression
  • Restore a sense of control
  • Increase coping skills
• Smoking Cessation
  • Improve overall health
  • Reduce probability of cancer reoccurrence

We believe that every cancer survivor, whether he/she is currently in treatment, in remission or living with cancer, should be given the chance to heal as much as possible and live life to its highest potential. For more information about the MCH Cancer Recovery & Rehabilitation program, call Denise Minyard, MS,CCC-SLP, at (432) 640-1230.