Dr Stefan Mueller (left) and Aisyah binte Omar (right) are part of a research team from the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Head & Neck Centre investigating impact of treatment on patients' Quality of Life.
Clinicians from different disciplines and institutions at the SingHealth Duke-NUS Head & Neck Centre are studying ways to improve patients’ quality of life after successful treatment.
For Aisyah binte Omar, a patient’s journey to recovery after cancer treatment is as important as their experience at our institutions.
“After surgery and radiotherapy or chemotherapy, their cancer may be gone, but their quality of life may not be as good as before treatment due to the side effects. They may have weakness, numbness, stiffness, or reduced sensation in the neck and shoulder areas which affect their physical functions.”
The physiotherapist at SGH is part of a research team from the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Head & Neck Centre, a SingHealth Duke-NUS Disease Centre (SDDC), which embarked on a study to uncover the impact of treatment on their patients’ quality of life (QOL).
The study is extremely relevant as almost all of its 340 complex head and neck cancer patients require radiotherapy and / or chemotherapy after extensive surgery.
The team’s research focuses on the patient’s fitness level and shoulder strength and range of motion , how it affects the patients’ QOL, and how physiotherapy can help patients optimise their physical functions to regain pre-treatment capability.
Principal investigator of the study, Dr Stefan Mueller, Resident Physician at the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), sees the necessity in the team’s research.
“The recovery process from surgery can be as long as three months. It takes a lot of support and emotional strength to get through the recovery to have good outcomes.”
“In oncology, we tend to focus on the survival rates of our patients. Through our study, we would like to look beyond that, find the factors that influence our patients’ QOL and measure how much they matter.
"We hope to be able to identify patients who may require more aggressive rehabilitation than is offered currently and find out if that will help improve their quality of life,” he added.
Very much the focus at the Head & Neck Centre, QOL Rounds are held every Thursday morning at 8.30 am. A group of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals including speech therapists, psychologists, physiotherapists,dietitians, occupational therapists, and medical social workers gather at the SGH wards.
Together the team addresses any problems identified for selected complex cases ranging from general ENT to surgical cases.
“The QOL Rounds are very interesting for me. They are not done in Germany where I lived and worked before moving to Singapore.
"They are an honest and transparent approach as they open you up to possible questioning by other professionals about the way you manage your patients,” said Dr Mueller.
Noted Aisyah, “For the physiotherapists, it is also an unusual approach to be working so closely with these groups of surgeons but a good one as it helps us provide a streamlined form of care. Physiotherapists from different wards in the SDDC can align their protocols and pick the best practices, ensuring that the patient receives the best possible care.”
About the SingHealth Duke-NUS Head & Neck Centre In a traditional hospital setting where departments are specialty-based, patients would be referred from one department to another to see different specialists. But when a patient is referred to a SingHealth Duke-NUS Disease Centre (SDDC), he or she can see all specialists at the same place. SDDCs are multidisciplinary and multi-institutional integrated practice units that focus on the treatment of particular disease groups. First formed in 2014 as one of the first SDDCs, the Head & Neck Centre brings together clinicians from general, plastic, ENT, to oral and maxillofacial surgery. Associate Professor Gopal Iyer who heads the Head & Neck Centre said, “More complex procedures involve multiple doctors from multiple institutions. With the SDDC working as a single referral channel, both patients and physicians can move seamlessly between institutions.” In terms of training and education, the concentration of sub-specialty cases at the centre provides rich clinical material for clinicians and educators. Research also gains from the combined clinical volume and streamlining of resources at the centre. |
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