Getting back to normal, with Dr. Debra Barton

The list of symptoms associated with cancers of all kinds is of course extraordinarily long. Particularly, among breast cancer survivors, these can include fatigue, hot flashes, and cognitive changes related to chemotherapy, nausea and vomiting, and sexual health, just to name a few. Of those, while sexual health and functioning have been reported in over 50% of women diagnosed with breast or gynecologic cancer. In most cases, these issues are not a part of standard cancer care which is where the research comes in. How can various physical symptoms, fatigue, body image, and partner issues predict overall sexual health among cancer survivors? What interventions, from clinical, to medications, to behavioral, show the most promise?

Dr. Debra Barton is the Mary Lou Willard French professor of nursing at the University of Michigan School of Nursing. She has spent her career looking at symptom management from multiple perspectives and finding ways to use more than one intervention to reduce symptoms with minimal to no side-effects. She's also been a BCRF grantee since 2008. Doctor Barton, thanks for joining me. This range of symptoms for people undergoing cancer treatments, or even survivors, is so unbelievably long for many folks, both on the science and research side, but also on the patient side and just among folks who are dealing with the disease.