Researchers from CINTESIS/University of Aveiro are recruiting cancer survivors with the aim of identifying the needs, facilitators and barriers to participating in cognitive rehabilitation programs aimed at improving their cognitive difficulties, particularly at the level of attention, executive functions and memory.
Men and women living in Portugal, aged 18 to 65, who have been diagnosed with any type of cancer (except brain tumours) and who present cognitive difficulties related to the disease or the treatments may participate. These changes often disrupt the survivors’ social, family and work functioning, negatively affecting their quality of life.
“This study is of great importance to give us crucial information about the specific needs for intervention at the cognitive level that our oncological population presents”, explains Ana Filipa Oliveira, researcher at CINTESIS/UA.
According to the principal investigator of the CanCOG project – Cognitive Rehabilitation in Cancer, “a recent study carried out in Portugal found that more than 8% of (breast) cancer survivors seem to have cognitive complaints arising from the cancer diagnosis and its treatments”. The most common complaints include forgetting things they didn’t usually forget (such as names or dates), concentration difficulties (they say they seem to have their heads “in the clouds”) and difficulties in doing more than one thing at the same time.
The information collected from participants in this study, which involves completing a set of online questionnaires, will inform the development of an online platform where a specific cognitive rehabilitation programme will be available to improve the cognitive abilities of cancer survivors.
The ongoing research is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), with researchers from CINTESIS/University of Aveiro and from the William James Center for Research (WJCR.UA), in an international collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), from the United States of America, and in partnership with national institutions that support cancer patients and their families, namely the Regional Branch of the Centre of the Portuguese League Against Cancer and the Portuguese Academy of Psycho-Oncology.
The research team includes Ana Filipa Oliveira, Isabel M. Santos, Ana Torres and Linda Ercoli, along with Anabela Pereira, Sara Monteiro, Ana Cláudia Bártolo, Helena Mendonça Sousa, Rita Tavares, David Oliveira and Milaydis Sosa Napolskij.
More information at: http://cancog.web.ua.pt/