Introduction
Welcome to iExhale. This app is here to support you to recover and feel better after treatment for lung cancer by providing you with tailored suggestions for different exercises and activities that can help to manage common symptoms such as breathlessness, fatigue and depression, as well as to improve your overall health, wellbeing, and lifestyle activities.
By rating your symptoms and providing us with information about your exercise preferences, the app will be able to provide you with up to three suggested exercises or activities that have been shown to improve wellbeing and help with symptom control. You can choose when, where and how often to do these activities depending on how you are feeling and what you are able to do. At the end of the week you will be able to record your activities and over time you will be able track your progress. If you would like more information about who this app is for or why physical activity is important read more below.
Otherwise, to get started tap or click on the blue ‘Rate my symptoms’ icon to input your preferences and get your recommended activities.
Who is the app for?
The iExhale app is designed specifically for people who are coming to the end of or who have finished their initial treatment for lung cancer, and are entering a follow-up phase of care.
Some people can find this stage difficult as they can often experience a range of symptoms and side effects associated with cancer and its treatment, including breathlessness fatigue and depression, together with the other lifestyle changes that cancer can bring. This is also a period where you may not be in contact with your health care team as much as you were prior to and during treatment, as you move away from the hospital and back into your daily life and new routines.
The iExhale app has been designed by a team of researchers at Oxford Brookes University with close input from lung cancer patients, their families and friends, and health care professionals to provide you with the tools to help manage your symptoms and overcome some of these challenges.
Whilst this is an exercise based app, it is designed for people of all levels of health and fitness levels. It doesn’t matter how active you were before your diagnosis or how energetic you feel after your treatment. IExhale will provide you with tailored and relevant suggestions based on your preferences and how you feel now.
Why is physical activity important?
A range of physical activities, from gentle activity through to more vigorous exercise, has been shown to help improve lung cancer patients’ experiences of the common symptoms of breathlessness, fatigue and depression, all of which can be associated with and exacerbated by treatment. However, exercise and other physical activity can also help to improve your confidence, regain health and fitness, relax the mind and body, and regain a sense of normality post-cancer All of the activities suggested in the iExhale app have been shown to have some or all of these benefits.
So it doesn’t matter if you are looking for something to help control specific symptoms or to improve your overall health and wellbeing, IExhale will have something for you.
It is generally recommended that people with cancer keep up with the same levels of activity recommended for people of the same age who do not have any other underlying conditions. This means at least 30 minutes of at least medium intensity exercise on three to five days a week. But you do not need to start here. Forming exercise habits over time by starting small and building up can still be beneficial, and even small changes can help.
N.B. If you have any of the below symptoms you should stop exercising:
- unusual fatigue or muscle weakness
- irregular pulse
- leg pains or cramps
- chest pain
- feeling sick or are sick during exercise
- vomiting within previous 24 to 36 hours
- dizziness, blurred vision
- difficulty breathing or numbness in your hands or feet and intravenous chemotherapy within previous 24 hours
- low blood counts (platelets, white and red blood cells)
How can this app help me?
iExhale uses information from you about your experience of symptoms and your preferences for different types of exercise to generate tailor made suggestions of different types of activities that you might enjoy and that you can use to control some of your symptoms, gain confidence, and feel good. The aim of the app is to provide you with the right tools and information to get active once you have finished treatment and are getting back to everyday life.
The app involves three main steps:
- Rate your symptoms and tell us your preferences
- Get your recommended activities
- Track your activity
The main focus of iExhale is you. Once you have rated your symptoms and indicated your preferences, you will be given up to three recommended activities from a group of activities. These have all been shown to be of benefit in improving symptom control in previous research studies that have been carried out. You will be given information about your recommended activities and how to do them in your own time, or access the resources you need to get started. You can review your symptoms and your preferences at any time to get new recommendations or you can stick with the same activities for as long as you like. At the end of each week you can record your activity for the week (we’ll send you a reminder!). That way you can track your progress. You will also be able to access a summary of your activities over the whole time you have used the app, so you can monitor your achievements and share them with your friends, family or healthcare team.
Find out more information about exercise after cancer treatment here:
www.christie.nhs.uk/media/2538/540.pdf
www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/coping/physically/exercise-guidelines