Penner Cooper, Zimmerman Chloe, Conboy Lisa, Kaptchuk Ted, Kerr Catherine
Department of Neuroscience, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States.
Department of Neurosurgery, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jul 3;11:1502. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01502. eCollection 2020.
Cancer Related Fatigue (CRF) is one of the most common and detrimental side effects of cancer treatment. Despite its increasing prevalence and severity CRF remains dismissed by the majority of clinicians. One reason for the apparent gap between clinical need and clinical undertaking is the penchant toward reductionist accounts of the disorder: a tendency to discount the interface between the lived experience of sufferers and the multi-dimensional etiology of CRF as it manifests adversely on a day-to-day basis.
In order to better understand the interplay between social, bodily, and emotional components of the disorder we undertook semi-structured interviews with thirteen Breast Cancer survivors suffering from CRF, and then subsequently analyzed their responses using Team Based Qualitative Analysis.
Our analysis revealed multiple dimensions of the social and bodily underpinnings of fatigue. Most relevantly we found a consistent change in the level and quality of attention to bodily signals. This shift in awareness appeared to be directly connected to the experience of CRF and a newfound, "respect," for the needs of the body. Furthermore, we found that many of the practices that were described as helpful in alleviating fatigue were oriented around eliciting a sense of embodied awareness, examples being: dance, yoga, and shamanic ritual. This relationship with bodily sensations existed in conjunction with the anxiety and trauma that arose as a result of cancer treatment.
Our analysis suggests that the quality of awareness and relationship to bodily experience in CRF is a functionally relevant component of the disorder and should be considered as an experiential target moving forward.
癌症相关疲劳（CRF）是癌症治疗最常见且有害的副作用之一。尽管其患病率和严重程度不断增加，但大多数临床医生仍对CRF不予理会。临床需求与临床实践之间明显脱节的一个原因是倾向于对该病症进行简化论解释：即倾向于忽视患者的生活经历与CRF的多维度病因之间的关联，因为CRF在日常中会产生不利影响。
为了更好地理解该病症的社会、身体和情感成分之间的相互作用，我们对13名患有CRF的乳腺癌幸存者进行了半结构化访谈，随后使用基于团队的定性分析方法对他们的回答进行了分析。
我们的分析揭示了疲劳的社会和身体基础的多个维度。最相关的是，我们发现对身体信号的关注程度和质量发生了持续变化。这种意识的转变似乎与CRF体验以及对身体需求新产生的“尊重”直接相关。此外，我们发现许多被描述为有助于缓解疲劳的做法都围绕着引发一种身体意识感，例如：舞蹈、瑜伽和萨满仪式。这种与身体感觉的关系与癌症治疗导致的焦虑和创伤并存。
我们的分析表明，CRF中意识的质量以及与身体体验的关系是该病症功能上相关的组成部分，应被视为未来的一个体验性目标。
