CALGARY- January 20, 2012 is a day Diane Franssen will never forget.
“I was having a bath and I felt a hard spot on the top of my right breast,” the 66-year-old grandmother recalls. She knew right away it was cancer.
Chemotherapy, surgery and radiation followed. For months, Franssen battled fatigue that stayed with her even after the final round of radiation.
“It’s the kind of exhaustion, sleep won’t help,” Franssen explains. “Your arms and legs feel really weak and you have very little strength.”
Fatigue is a common side effect of cancer treatment, impacting 96 per cent of patients. 33 per cent of patients say that fatigue stays with them for months after treatment.
“There was a study published last year showing that light therapy helped prevent the worsening of fatigue in women undergoing chemotherapy,” Jillian Johnson, a PhD student in psychology at the University of Calgary explains. “We wanted to see if it could help people who finish their treatments but still feel tired.”
Researchers are now looking to recruit survivors like Diane who are at least three months past their final cancer treatment. Franssen enrolled earlier this year, and each morning she spent 30 minutes in front of a high powered tabletop light therapy device.
“Early morning light exposure kind of gets your stress hormones going, gets your metabolism going and gets you ready for the day,” Johnson explains. Researchers plan to assess whether light therapy helps improve sleep, quality of life, immune function and measures of stress hormones in 128 people.
Franssen says she noticed her energy levels improve within two weeks. “I still don’t have all my strength and stamina back, but a lot of the fatigue has gone away and I’m sleeping a lot better.”
To be eligible, study participants must be at least 3 months clear of their final cancer treatment and must not be a shift worker or suffer from sleep apnea. For more information phone 403-210-8606, e-mail lite@ucalgary.ca or visit www.thelitestudy.ca
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