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Updated: May 21, 2025
Quantifying Cognitive Decrements Caused by Cranial Radiotherapy
Published on: October 18, 2011
Digital multimodal intervention for cancer-related cognitive impairment in breast-cancer patients: Cog-Stim
Giulia Binarelli1, Florence Joly1,2,3,4, François Christy2
1ANTICIPE U1086 INSERM, Equipe Labellisée Ligue Contre Le Cancer, Services Unit PLATON, Cancer and Cognition Platform, Université de Caen Normandie, Normandie Université, Caen, 14000, France.
Background:
This feasibility study evaluated adherence and effectiveness to a digital multimodal intervention (cognitive and physical training) for cancer-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) in patients with breast cancer.
Methods:
Breast cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy and with significant cognitive complaints impacting quality of life participated in a 12-week intervention, combining non-simultaneous 20-min cognitive and 30-min physical sessions, twice weekly. Assessments included perceived cognitive impairment (PCI), objective cognition, fatigue, anxiety/depression, sleep and satisfaction. High level of adherence was defined as completing 9/12 weeks of the program. A week was complete when at least 70% of each of the planned sessions was completed. Physical activity intensity was defined by max age-related heart rate.
Results:
Among 419 radiotherapy-treated patients with breast cancer, 170 had cognitive complaints (41%), 83 were eligible (49%), 29 were not included (35%) due to organizational issue and 20 among eligible contacted patients agreed to participate (37%). The majority of participants (48.3 ± 8 years of age) received chemotherapy (18/20) and 17 had I-II cancer stage. Eleven of twenty participants were highly adherent (higher adherence in physical (95%) than cognitive training (55%)). All expressed satisfaction. Post-intervention, overall objective cognition (p = 0.016), PCI (p = 0.004), fatigue (p = 0.011), and depression (p = 0.049) significantly improved. Post-intervention, high adherence was associated with significant improvements in PCI (p = 0.01) and fatigue (p = 0.03). High-intensity physical training was associated with significant improvements in PCI (p < 0.05), fatigue (p = 0.011) and depression (p = 0.037).
Conclusions:
This intervention showed to be feasible and potentially efficient for the management of CRCI in patients with breast cancer.
Trial Registration:
NCT04213365, 27/12/2019.
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