“There is one word patients use over and over again to describe the program. They have no connection to one another, but they all tell me, ‘This program gives me hope.’” said Reid Hayward, Ph.D., director of UNC’s Cancer Rehabilitation Institute.
The institute is located in the Ben Nighthorse Campbell Center on Central Campus. Staff provides treatment through prescribed exercise that counteracts the negative side effects cancer treatment has on a person’s physical strength and improves their quality of life.
The program was founded in 1996 by Dr. Carole Schneider, a UNC professor, to investigate the impact exercise has on cancer survivors. Shneider was diagnosed with cancer in November 1995. Alongside her physician, she found that exercise balanced out the side effects and toxicities of her treatment.
Schneider realized how little information was available on post-cancer treatment and wanted to make it more available to the community. With the help of students, she created the institute and began improving the lives of local cancer survivors.
Today, the center is recommended to patients in the area by their oncologists. When they come for treatment at the institute, they are given a complete physical assessment and a prescribed exercise plan based on the assessment and their stage of treatment. Patients can start as soon as they receive their diagnosis, but most come during or after treatment.
“There is so much patients have gone through with their diagnosis, their treatment and all those things going along with it," Hayward said. "You know, ‘Can I work anymore? Am I going to live? I have kids, I have a family. What is going to happen?’ There's so much hopelessness in that whole process, and we provide something that combats that."
The institute brings hope back. It helps them return to the person they were before the diagnosis, and it provides an educational experience to students while doing so.
Students can get involved with the program through internships, but most take the sports and exercise science elective “Exercise Oncology," where students learn about what the institute does.
“In the process, many students realize that there is this whole field of exercise science they didn’t know anything about. They’re like, ‘Wow, I didn't even realize that was a possibility. I’m interested,'” Hayward said.
After students take the course, there are many opportunities for them to get more involved with the center. They can work there for a practicum or internship and then go on to do it as a career.
“I’m proud of the relationships that develop between our students and the patients,” Hayward said.
Most of the trainers and supervisors in the program are students. The positive impact made by the Cancer Rehabilitation Institute is obvious in its patients and workers.
Cancer patients from all around the area are welcome to utilize the center’s resources. It exists to make a difference in the community and strives to improve as many lives as possible.
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