Teaching patients mindfulness-based stress reduction achieves improvement in cancer- treatment cognitive impairment, according to a study from the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Cancer-related cognitive impairment, referred to as chemo brain has been shown in many people, to persist long after cancer therapy has been completed.
Shelley Johns, Psy.D., psychologist and lead researcher explains, “More people than ever are surviving cancer due to the development of targeted and effective treatments. “Yet many cancer survivors are living with difficult and persistent side effects of these treatments, which can be incapacitating.
“Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) provides a creative solution for survivors whose social and occupational functioning may have been negatively impacted by cognitive difficulties. Mindfulness meditation practices enable cancer survivors to better manage cancer-related cognitive impairment, reported by approximately 35 percent of cancer survivors who have completed treatment,”
The study published in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship, is the first clinical trial to evaluate the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction, known as MBSR, on breast and colorectal cancer survivors, most of whom had been treated with chemotherapy.
Study participants reported significantly greater improvement in their ability to focus, and made fewer mistakes on difficult cognitive tasks than those in the control group of the study who received only education materials and counseling.
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