If you’ve gone through cancer treatment, we understand that the experience has changed you as a person. You may have physical, emotional, and social issues that are affecting your quality of life.

At the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Health System, our Cancer Rehabilitation Program can improve your function, reduce your pain, and improve your overall well-being following cancer treatment. We do this by helping you:

• Enhance your physical fitness, including muscle strength, endurance, stamina, and cardiovascular fitness
• Improve your bowel and bladder function
• Build your nutritional health and understanding
• Minimize pain or discomfort
• Prevent future hospitalizations

Your cancer rehabilitation team is led by a doctor who specializes in physical medicine and rehabilitation, called a physiatrist. Your rehabilitation team works with your primary care doctor, oncologist, and other specialists to give you complete care. Your team may also include a:

• Case manager
• Chaplain
• Dietitian
• Occupational therapist
• Oncologist
• Physical therapist
• Psychologist or psychiatrist
• Recreational therapist
• Rehabilitation nurse
• Social worker
• Vocational (career) counselor

Who is a Candidate?

If you’ve undergone treatment for cancer, you’re welcome to participate in our rehabilitation program.

What to Expect

We customize your rehabilitation program to help you meet goals that are important to you. Your program may include one or more approaches, such as:

• Activities to improve your mobility (movement) — such as exercises to build muscle strength and endurance — and help you sleep better
• Assistance with activities of daily living, such as eating, dressing, bathing, toileting, handwriting, cooking, and basic housekeeping
• Management of chronic illness or complications caused by cancer treatments
• Nutritional counseling
• Patient and family education and counseling
• Smoking cessation assistance
• Stress, anxiety, and depression management
• Medications and pain management techniques to reduce pain
• Vocational counseling to help with career-related planning

Why Choose UHealth?

Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center: the only designated Cancer Center of Excellence in South Florida. The best potential outcomes. The likelihood of a patient surviving cancer after five years at a Dedicated Cancer Center is 17 percent higher than at other hospitals.

World-class care in an academic health center. As a research and teaching institution, we treat children and adults with proven, leading-edge procedures based on clinical studies performed at the Miller School of Medicine. Our doctors, residents, nurses, and therapists work together to improve health care.