Nutrition And Psychological Counselling

Cancer treatments such as surgery or chemotherapy affect the patient's diet and nutrition. It is important to find ways to maintain a healthy weight and eat nutritious foods. Sometimes, the side effects of cancer and cancer treatment can cause changes to your appetite and weight, inducing weight loss or weight gain.

Furthermore, there are psychological factors to consider during the course of the cancer care treatment. Such patients, therefore, require nutrition counselling.

The objectives of nutritional counselling is not limited to ensuring adequate caloric intake. It is related to various contextual factors that affect patients, such as anxiety regarding weight loss, building physical strength to fight the disease, and the desire to maintain pre-illness lifestyles as much as possible. Therefore, in addition to providing support according to each patient’s pathophysiology, nutrition counselling must use a holistic approach.

Distress and confusion stemming from cancer treatment needs to be managed by providing individual nutrition counselling and information on enriching foods, oral nutritional supplements, enteral and parenteral nutrition, exercise training, and supportive care to enable and improve food intake.

At Veritas Cancer Care, we provide specific nutritional and physical activity recommendations. Following nutritional and psychological counselling has the potential to reduce nutritional risk during cancer treatment and address eating problems, and optimal management could improve treatment tolerance and decrease treatment interruptions.