PERCS Study

Background to PERCS study

Cancer and its treatments can lead to side-effects which can negatively impact all aspects of a person’s quality of life. Anyone who had treatment for cancer during the coronavirus pandemic may have experienced additional challenges during this time, including needing to ‘cocoon’, or difficulty accessing rehabilitation services which could further impact their mental and physical wellbeing.

Physical activity can help improve many of the side-effects of cancer treatment and can enhance both physical and mental wellbeing. People living with and beyond cancer, particularly those impacted by COVID-19, can benefit greatly from being supported to take part in physical activity.

About PERCS

Personalised Exercise Rehabilitation in Cancer Survivorship (PERCS) is a project funded by the Irish Cancer Society which involves running and evaluating a new physical rehabilitation triage and referral system in St James’s Hospital.

A rehabilitation assessment & triage system

We will assess the physical and psychosocial wellbeing of people who received cancer treatment since March 2020. Depending on each person’s needs, we will refer them a suitable exercise-based rehabilitation pathway, which could be either:

• One-to-one supervised exercise with a physiotherapist: for those needing the highest level of support
• Community-based exercise: for those who need some guidance but are safe to exercise in groups and with a low level of supervision
• Independent activity: for those who are meeting recommended levels of activity and have no needs for supervision during exercise

We will then look at how this system influences physical and psychosocial outcomes in cancer survivors treated during the coronavirus pandemic.

Services we will link in with

We aim to make best use of services available in our hospitals and community settings to support people to engage in suitable, meaningful and beneficial activity. Other important rehabilitation needs identified during assessment, such as need for psychological assistance, will be supported with referrals to appropriate healthcare professionals.

The PERCS team

The PERCS team, led by Principal Investigator Dr Emer Guinan, Clinical Lead Dr Claire Donohoe and Project Manager Dr Louise Brennan, includes experts in physiotherapy, health psychology, occupational therapy, and dietetics, and patient representatives from the Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute Patient Representative Group.