Support and Care

Diet and Nutrition

Nutrition is an integral part of cancer treatment as adequate nutrition ensures maintenance of strength and promotes healing. Malnutrition leads to weight loss, impairments of immune functions, decrease quality of life, depletion of protein stores and increase risk of complications. Dietitians are trained professional whom gives nutritional recommendation to maximize nutritional status of patients before, during and after cancer treatment. Dietitians will assist patients to eliminate common nutrition impacts by providing reliable information and educate on complex nutritional issues. Our dietitians will provide individualized dietary assessment and assist you and your care giver to modify your diet to suit your needs.

Our dietitians at Pantai will provide individualized dietary assessment and assist you and your care giver to modify your diet to suit your needs.

Pharmacy and Lab

Pharmacy

All chemotherapy agents are reconstituted in a lab called, cytotoxic drug reconstitution lab (CDR lab). The drugs will be prepared and reconstituted by trained pharmacy staff in a sterile condition that decreases the risk of contamination from these chemotherapy agents. The pharmacist will provide instruction and counseling to patients and family members concerning medication, side effects and drug interactions.

Pathology & Lab

Accurate and comprehensive pathological examination and diagnosis is essential for determining the correct cancer treatment options and prognosis. Samples collected with cancer blood tests or other tests of urine, fluid or tissue are analyzed in a lab for signs of cancer. Your doctors can follow the development of cancer from the lab tests and monitor a patient’s response to treatment. The blood and urine tests can also give your doctor an idea of how well your organs are functioning and if they've been affected by cancer. A full blood count (FBC) test is one of the most common blood tests to measure the amount of various types of blood cells in a blood sample. Tumor marker tests use samples of blood or urine to find substances in the body that may indicate cancer.

At Pantai Cancer Institute, we have a dedicated CDR lab that staffed with trained pharmacy technicians to prepare chemotherapy drugs for our patients. We also have an onsite Pathology & Lab department operates 24 hour providing Biochemistry, Haematology, Anatomical Pathology and Diagnostic Molecular Pathology to meet cancer patients' needs with the utmost convenience. The department offers numerous key diagnostic tests important for cancer diagnosis and treatment follow-up, and all are interpreted by highly qualified pathologists.

Both of these services are located adjacent to the centre which allows the cancer care teams to communicate with each other more effectively and results are quickly processed and made available more promptly. This efficiency decreases patient anxiety and waiting time.

Rehab and Psychosocial

Rehabilitation for Cancer

Within the context of cancer care the goals of rehabilitation are to assist the person to achieve the highest level of physical, psychological and vocational function within the limits imposed by the disease or treatment regimes. No matter when, where or what stage the cancer is, most patients find fatigue, discomfort, and changes in mobility, function and fitness are common problems they face.

Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy can help minimise some of the effects of cancer or its treatment – aiming to improve the quality of life of patients by helping them to achieve maximum potential, functional ability, independence. Physiotherapy, as a health care profession concerned with human movement and function, together with occupational therapy which focuses on addressing the impact cancer may have on vocational, family and day to day activities, aim to collaboratively help maintain and improve and restore the optimum physical, psychological and social well-being throughout all stages of cancer.

Where circumstances demand, the emphasis may be more on offering relief from distressing symptoms with positioning, movement, manual therapies or electro-physical agents to help cope with pain, fatigue, changes in physical ability and mobility. Some may require more specific specialist intervention for neurological rehabilitation techniques, or respiratory care, massage for lymphatic drainage, or relaxation techniques.. Others patients’ needs would be more on whole-body workout to improve their general well being, mobility, flexibility, strength and conditioning that can be gained through specialized exercise programmes monitored and supervised by therapists.

In all cases rehab will aim to improve the quality of life and dignity of those suffering from cancer.

Psychosocial Support

To a patient with cancer, the journey to deal with cancer can be very lonely and depressing. Friends and family may feel awkward about discussing cancer with someone who has the disease and for fear that they will stir up the patient’s negative thoughts to cope with cancer. Cancer patients are often kept away from their normal life, spending time getting treatment rather than at work or with family. To find new ways to re-connect with others and get back to social life, patients are always encouraged to get help from friends, reach out to family or seek a psychosocial support. Psychosocial support includes mental health counseling, education, spiritual support, group support and many other such services. These services are usually provided by mental health professionals such as psychologists, social workers, counselors, specialized nurses and others.

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