If you’ve been through the challenges of spine tumor treatment, the next step after recovery can often be one of the scariest — getting back to your life, and living it on your terms.
Spine tumors can cause pain, numbness, weakness, and loss of balance. These symptoms can affect how you do everyday activities, such as getting in and out of bed, walking, bathing, and getting dressed. Radiation therapy can help relieve these symptoms, but you may need additional treatments, including medication, physical therapy, or assistive devices to decrease pain and get back mobility during and after your treatment.
The experts at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Adult Survivorship Program offer services and support to help you and your loved ones understand and prepare for life after treatment. We’ll work with you to help figure out what your “next step” — or steps — should be.
Rehabilitation and Exercise
Physical and occupational therapy can help you get back key functions and enjoy daily activities again. Our dedicated rehabilitation experts can help you recover after treatment for spine tumors. We’ll help you learn therapeutic exercises and neuromuscular training to strengthen your lower body and improve endurance and balance. These exercises can prevent falls and other injuries and help decrease pain throughout recovery.
Counseling and Support
Sometimes, you and your loved ones just need someone to talk to someone who’s trained to help you make sense of your journey before, during, and after treatment.
Our Counseling Center offers counseling sessions to help you and your family. These sessions can be a healthy, productive way to work through the stress and anxiety that are sometimes a part of treatment and recovery.
Integrative Medicine
Treatment plans are vital to your overall health. Their sole purpose is to get you healthy again. But we also offer complementary services to soothe and heal not just your body, but your mind and spirit.
Our Integrative Medicine Service can be a valuable part of your formal treatment plan. Programs include massage, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, meditation, visualization, music therapy, and nutritional counseling programs. Formal classes include yoga, t’ai chi, and chair aerobics.
Older Patients
Spine cancer is a challenge for anyone, regardless of age. But if you’re 65 or older, you may face challenges unique to your age group. At Memorial Sloan Kettering, we’re committed to providing cancer patients of all ages with the treatment, facilities, and support they need.
Your treatment team will include health care professionals who have the specialized training and experience to effectively treat older patients. Every aspect of your care — diagnosis, treatment, recovery, support — will be tailored to meet your unique needs.
See more about what we do at MSK to help older patients.
Supportive Care and Pain Management
At Memorial Sloan Kettering, we focus on all aspects of comprehensive cancer care, not just treating the disease. Our specialists in supportive care can help you cope with the side effects of therapy. These include pain, nausea, and fatigue. We can also help with the emotional and spiritual needs that often come up during and after cancer treatment.
Learn more about how our Supportive Care Service can help you throughout the cancer experience.
If you are in pain during your treatments or even after they’re over, we have pain specialists who can help. We will build a plan that makes sense for you and your needs. Our experts can work with your doctor and pharmacists to give you solutions for both acute physical pain, which comes on suddenly, as well as chronic pain, which can linger. Our goal is to keep you as comfortable as possible.
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