Grant: CIHR Fellowship

More than half of people who receive taxane or platinum based chemotherapy for cancer get chronic damage to their nerves called chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). CIPN can cause sensory symptoms for life, like numbness, pain, and hypersensitivity to touch. In some people, it also causes motor symptoms, like weakness. CIPN makes it hard for people to use their hands or feet and go back to work, which impact people's quality of life. There are no ways to prevent or cure CIPN and very few treatments that relieve symptoms. Because of this, CIPN goes untreated. Recent fitness training has reduced motor symptoms. But it does not address sensory symptoms. Sensory Rehabilitation is a promising new treatment for numbness, pain, and hypersensitivity to touch. Our primary goal is to see if a combined Sensory and Motor Rehabilitation program (MI SENS-OR REHAB) that includes communication based on acceptance, partnership, compassion, and help to identify desired outcomes is feasible and if patients and therapists are willing to use it. It will also see if it reduces medication use, reduces symptoms and improves function. A group of 44 people with CIPN related to breast cancer chemotherapy will receive MI SENS-OR REHAB for 15 weeks. Questionnaires and physical tests will be done before and after treatment, and 3 months later. We will look at its effects on numbness, pain, strength, dexterity, balance, function, psychological wellbeing, and quality of life. Patients, their relatives, and therapists will take part in interviews to tell us, in their own words, their thoughts about SMR and CIPN's impact. It will help us to design a larger study to see how well MI SENS-OR REHAB treats CIPN during and after chemotherapy and how long effects last, which could orient future scaling up studies that will result in improvement of post-chemotherapy treatments for Canadians. If it helps CIPN, we will create a free MI SENS-OR REHAB training program for cancer care providers.