Exercise Interventions for Improving Health in Breast Cancer Survivors

Supervised, prescribed exercise has positive effects on body composition, physical functioning, psychological wellbeing and quality of life for patients after breast cancer treatment. However, exercise interventions are often time consuming, commonly take place at a health or fitness facility, and usually require a trained professional to be present. Cost-effective, enjoyable and practical approaches, that can be adopted at home or in local surroundings are needed. For example, an alternative approach is using an electronic physical activity tracking wristwatch to help patients engage with exercise or physical activity. Research demonstrates the importance of structured and supervised exercise for breast cancer survivors. However, it is not known whether other approaches (e.g. home-based exercise and physical activity) alongside the use of personalised technology-enabled feedback, can cause similar improvements to health when compared to structured exercise. The overall aim of this study is to determine whether cardiorespiratory fitness is changed by a technology enabled, remotely delivered exercise intervention and to determine whether this change is similar to the change caused by a partly supervised, prescribed exercise intervention. This study will also determine the influence of both interventions on physical functioning, body composition and blood pressure.