Effects of a Step-by-Step Inpatient Rehabilitation Programme on Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Patients. A Prospective Randomised Study

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare aconventional oncological inpatient rehabilitation programmewith an inpatient step-by-step rehabilitationprogramme with regard to quality of life in breast cancerpatients. Patients and Methods: Women with the diagnosisof breast cancer were randomly assigned to either thestep-by-step programme (group A: 3-week rehabilitationplus 4 and 8 months later a 1-week sojourn each time) orthe conventional rehabilitation programme (group B: 4-week stay and no further interventions afterwards). Qualityof life was assessed with the QLQ-C30 of the EORTCat t0 (beginning of the study), t1 (end of 3- or 4-week stay)and t2 (12 months after t0, end of study). Results: Betweent0 and t1, a tendency (0.1 > p = 0.05) could beshown in group B towards better improvement in globalquality of life and emotional function. In the subgroup ofpatients that had impaired functions of quality of life att0, superiority in group B reached significance (p < 0.05)for emotional and cognitive function at t1. Between t1 andt2, cognitive function improved further in group A, butdiminished in group B. For the subgroup of patients withimpaired cognitive function at t0, this difference betweenboth groups became significant (p = 0.0098). Conclusions:Although not generally superior to conventionalinpatient rehabilitation programmes, the analysed stepby-step rehabilitation provided marked benefits for patientswith cognitive impairments.