Yoga for Children and Adolescents After Completing Cancer Treatment

Mary C. Hooke, Laura Gilchrist, Laurie Foster, Mary Langevin, Jill Lee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

Survivors of childhood cancer may experience persistent symptoms, including fatigue, sleep disturbance, and balance impairment. Yoga is a complementary therapy that improves fatigue, sleep, and quality of life in adult cancer survivors. Using a one group, repeated measures design, we evaluated the feasibility of a yoga program and assessed if cancer survivor participants ages 10 to 17 years (n = 13) had significantly less fatigue and anxiety, and better balance and sleep, after a 6-week yoga intervention compared with a 6-week pre-intervention wait period. Study recruitment was challenging with a 32% enrollment rate; yoga attendance was 90%. None of the scores for anxiety, fatigue, sleep, and balance had significant changes during the wait period. After the 6-week yoga program, children (n = 7) had a significant decrease in anxiety score (P =.04) while adolescent scores (n = 7) showed a decreasing trend (P =.10). Scores for fatigue, sleep, and balance remained stable post-intervention. Fatigue and balance scores were below norms for health children/adolescents while sleep and anxiety scores were similar to healthy peers.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)64-73
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Pediatric Oncology Nursing
Volume33
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2016

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research study was supported by a nursing research grant from Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, © 2015 by Association of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Nurses.

Keywords

  • pediatric cancer
  • survivorship
  • symptoms
  • yoga

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