eHealth, agency, and vulnerability in cancer: A reflection

Written by Esther de Jongh

Photo by Steven Lelham on Unsplash

Within the cancer survivorship domain, the use of exercise to reduce negative side effects of treatment is gradually becoming standard practice, resulting in a higher quality of life for many.1-4 Accelerated by the pandemic in 2019, the use of eHealth programs for supervised exercise (also known as telerehabilitation programs), whether experimental or standardized, has increased. eHealth programs have the potential to bypass obstacles that might prevent patients from exercising at a physical location, such as long distances and lack of time or (financial) resources.5-7 Reducing the equity gap in health care is one of the promises its online delivery hopes to fulfill: provision of exercise with online guidance can lower the threshold for those who lack know-how or resources to do so on their own accord, while staying in the familiarity of their own home. In this post I highlight the important role of the healthcare provider (HCP) in making these programs accessible to everyone. 

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Cancer is increasingly survivable – but it shouldn’t depend on your ability to ‘wrangle’ the health system

Written by: Kevin Dew, Alex Broom, Chris Cunningham, Elizabeth Dennett, Kerry Chamberlain, and Richard Egan

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One in three of us will develop cancer at some point in our lives. But survival rates have improved to the point that two-thirds of those diagnosed live more than five years.

This extraordinary shift over the past few decades introduces new challenges. A large and growing proportion of people diagnosed with cancer are living with it, rather than dying of it.

In our recently published research we examined the cancer experiences of 81 New Zealanders (23 Māori and 58 non-Māori).

We found survivorship not only entailed managing the disease, but also “wrangling” a complex health system.

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