Cancer rehabilitation is focused on improving the quality of life and experience of people who have been diagnosed with cancer. It is not focused on the disease, it is focused on people, and helping them get back to living.

Many people emerge from treatment facing struggles far beyond their illness. It is very common for cancer survivors to find they have ongoing physical disabilities such as fatigue, pain, and weakness, alongside emotional distress, depression, and at times debilitating anxiety regarding the prospect of cancer recurring. So often too, the financial and employment implications of cancer treatment that continue into survivorship are a cause of ongoing distress to those who have survived the physical disease, and to their families.

If people receive cancer rehab services, they have better health outcomes, suffer less distress from symptoms, experience less uncertainty and fear, and report better mental and physical quality of life over their lifetime.