Caring for Your Body Before and After Bone Marrow Transplant

If you have a blood disorder or blood cancer, your care team may suggest you undergo bone marrow (stem cell) transplant. We recently sat down with Franciscan Health physical therapist Macy Hogan to understand what to expect and how to prepare your body for this complex process.

Preparing For Bone Marrow Transplant

“The top thing someone can do to prepare for bone marrow transplant is to stay physically active,” said Hogan.

Finding the energy to exercise can be a challenge because many people with blood cancer or other blood diseases experience extreme fatigue.

If you have bone marrow cancer, changes in your blood cell counts (levels of red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets in the blood) will likely leave you feeling exhausted. What’s more, before undergoing bone marrow transplant, you’ll likely receive chemotherapy to kill the cancerous cells. One of the top side effects of chemotherapy is fatigue.

Benefits Of Staying Active Before Bone Marrow Transplant

Cancer-related fatigue can keep you from maintaining your usual activity level. As a result, you may become weak and experience physical limitations before your bone marrow transplant. Staying active and maintaining your physical fitness before your procedure can help you after your transplant in the following ways:

• Enhance your quality of life
• Improve your overall transplant outcome
• Reduce your recovery time

For these reasons, it’s critical to keep moving as much as you can during all phases of cancer treatment. Try these low-impact exercises to help you stay active:

• Do light stretching
• Practice yoga
• Swim for short distances
• Take short walks

Franciscan’s Transplant Optimization Program (TOP)

Participating in Franciscan Health’s prehabilitation program is a highly effective way to ensure you stay moving. Our specialized physical therapists offer this bone marrow transplant preparation as part of our Transplant Optimization Program (TOP). The experienced team customizes your prehabilitation to fit your needs and ability level.

Our physical therapists will make an initial evaluation to determine the program that’s right for you:

• In some cases, you may only need one follow-up visit before your procedure to learn about transplant expectations, fatigue, and a home exercise program.
• In other cases, you may need additional follow-up visits. During these visits, our team will help prepare you for transplant.

Typically, it’s a short time between the initial evaluation and your transplant – sometimes only a matter of a few weeks.

“The earlier we can refer a bone marrow transplant candidate to physical therapy for rehabilitation, the more opportunity to improve their physical fitness before their procedure,” Hogan said.

Recovery From Bone Marrow Transplant

Recovery from bone marrow transplant is a long process. Your timeline will vary depending on your diagnosis, the type of transplant, your other health conditions and any complications that arise during and after the procedure. You will typically meet with your BMT team several times each week right after your transplant. These follow-up appointments decrease in frequency over the weeks and months following your transplant.

“The time after transplant is great for continuing to participate in physical therapy,” said Hogan. “This is when patients see the largest functional decline, as well as a negative impact on their daily activities, energy levels and quality of life.”

Staying active is a great way to rebuild your strength, and increase your mobility and well-being.

Benefits Of Physical Therapy After Bone Marrow Transplant

Participating in physical therapy and a home exercise program can help you stay as healthy and active as possible. Participating in specialized post-transplant physical therapy can help:

• Decrease side effects of treatment, including fatigue and diarrhea
• Reduce the length of your hospital stay
• Reduce your chances of hospital readmission
• Shorten your recovery time
• Speed up your blood count recovery

Choose Franciscan Health For Expert Care

Because the transplant process is long, we take the time to build a connection with each patient at Franciscan Health.

“Our doctors and staff work very hard to meet your needs and are – above all – compassionate and relatable,” said Hogan.

The staff gets to know each patient so they can provide high-quality, personalized care.

Franciscan Health is the only transplant center in Indiana offering a prehabilitation optimization program for people preparing for bone marrow transplant. Participating in the Franciscan Health Transplant Optimization Program can help you maintain your physical conditioning before your procedure, as well as after, during your recovery. Contact us to learn more.