Local Researchers Helping Cancer Patients Deal With After Effects Of

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) ? Memory failure. Loss of focus. An inability to concentrate.

Cancer patients can suffer from all those. Chemotherapy has after effects on the brain.

Now, local researchers are helping cancer survivors get their minds back to full working order.

Lisa Sigell, health reporter for CBS2 and KCAL9, met with the researchers and the people they are helping.

Diana Franklin is an inflammatory breast cancer survivor.

She?s taking a battery of tests. But it?s not for a grade in a class.? ?Scatter brained. Speaking of scatter brained, I have a lodd of focus. That?s a good example.?

Sigell has followed Franklin?s story for the past four year. Franklin beat the odds, but noticed her once-sharp brain wasn?t so sharp anymore.

After all she had been through, beating the cancer, the chemo, the radiation, to know her brain was not affected, got her depressed. ?I?m finally feeling better. And then you realize something is wrong with your brain? It was scary and depressing.?

Franklin is part of a UCLA study. It?s a five-week course that helps cancer survivors overcome cognitive difficulties.

Dr. Patricia Ganz, director of the Patients and Survivors Program at UCLA?s Jonsson Cancer Center, says what Franklin suffers from is called ?Chemo Brain.?

?Twenty-five percent of women, after going through breast cancer treatment, will report difficulties with memory and concentration. The drugs that we give may directly affect the brain and slow its function,? says Dr. Ganz.

Men and women both get chemo brain. It can involve simple things, like forgetting keys. It can be more problematic, like forgetting routine words.

While doctors are trying to figure out how cancer treatments specifically affect the brain, the goal of this program is to simply help patients ASAP.

Clinical psychologist Linda Ercoli says the program is showing great promise. ?People think, you?re done. Move on with your life. But a lot of women have these persistent thinking problems that really affect the quality of their lift from being annoying to disabling.?

Cancer survivors are put through a battery of tests. Says Ercoli, ?We also teach them how to apply the principles to their daily lives.?

Franklin believes her mind if healing along with her body. ?The program is giving me hope. When people, your loves ones, see a difference in your behavior and your memory, that to me is a wonderful life lesson and I?m very grateful.?

Source: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2012/09/07/local-researchers-helping-cancer-patients-deal-with-after-effects-of-chemotherapy/

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