As a clinician scientist and nurse practitioner, Edith Pituskin runs a busy clinic, caring for cancer patients while learning how to relieve the symptoms people face that can lead to poor quality of life after treatment.
"People are commonly suffering with the effects of necessary anti-cancer treatments for the remainder of their life," says Pituskin, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Nursing and member of the Cancer Research Insitute of Northern Alberta. "These effects can include difficult chronic fatigue and poor exercise tolerance leading to a cycle of depression and poor quality of life."
To better understand how such effects happen and how to help people cope, a new U of A Precision Human Health Laboratory will help researchers investigate techniques to improve patients' exercise tolerance and cardiovascular health, and expand the use of exercise as a clinical tool.
