Sports Sciences Commons^™

Nutrition, Body Composition And Physical Activity In Malignant Pleural Disease: Associations With Patient Outcomes And Response To An Exercise Intervention, Emily Jeffery

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Background: Patients with malignant pleural disease (MPD) have advanced cancer and high symptom burden. Goals of patient care are to optimise health-related quality-of-life (HR-QoL) and participation in daily physical activities. Supportive care interventions such as nutrition and exercise could offer benefit to patients. However, there is a lack of information on the prevalence of low muscle mass (i.e., pre-sarcopenia), malnutrition, inactivity and poor physical functioning in patients with MPD. Additionally, little is known about the factors associated with development of pre-sarcopenia and malnutrition or their associations with patient outcomes.

Purpose: The objectives were to: 1) characterise physical activity levels and …

Activity Behavior And Physiological Profile Of Advanced-Stage Ovarian Cancer Survivors, Christelle Schofield

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Background: Advanced-stage ovarian cancer survivors (OCS) often experience a multitude of disease symptoms and treatment-related side-effects. Additionally, most OCS are older, have comorbidities, are overweight or obese, and report being insufficiently physically active. Ovarian cancer survivors may benefit from exercise oncology interventions to reduce symptom-burden, manage comorbidities, minimize functional decline and maximize health-related quality of life (HRQoL). However, current knowledge gaps regarding the physiological characteristics of OCS throughout the entire survivorship spectrum challenge the development of tailored exercise interventions.

Purpose: The overall purpose of this thesis was to provide a more comprehensive physiological and activity behavior profile of post-treatment advanced-stage …

Role Of Physical Exercise In Reducing Depression And Improving Mental Health In Cancer Survivors, Gregory Levin

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Cancer survivors are more than twice as likely as the general population to suffer the debilitating effects of depression. This comorbid condition is associated with several negative consequences, such as reduction in compliance with cancer treatments, and hastened mortality. Recent research has examined the therapeutic effect of exercise on depression and reported excellent results of similar magnitude to those achieved with pharmacotherapy or psychological intervention. However, no research, to date, has examined the effectiveness of exercise on reducing depression in depressed cancer survivors. In order to address this important question this thesis reviewed previous literature in the area of cancer …