This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Over 1.3 million people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Half of patients with cancer have problems falling asleep or staying asleep and up to 100% complain of being unusually tired in the daytime. Both cancer and cancer treatment can cause these problems. After healthy people rest, they usually feel refreshed and able to carry on with their normal activities, but patients with cancer often still feel tired and want to rest even more. Unfortunately, too much rest causes the body to lose tone and muscle mass, which in turn makes the patient feel even more tired. When this happens the body becomes very inefficient and it takes more energy to move around and do ordinary activities. The purpose of this study is to test whether an individualized prescription for strength training with resistance bands, and aerobic walking (exercise group), helps patients sleep better at night and feel less tired in the daytime than just telling them to try to stay active and walk three times a week (usual care group). Two hundred patients with multiple myeloma will be assigned by chance to the exercise group or the usual care group. All the patients in the study will fill out two short paper-and-pencil instruments to measure how tired they are, pull up on a dynamometer to test their strength, do a 6-minute walk test measure their endurance and wear a special watch like device (actigraph) to measure how well they sleep. In addition, 40 of the 200 patients will have overnight sleep studies to learn whether the exercise program had any influence on their nighttime sleep. The long-term goal of the study is to improve the quality of life for cancer patients by improving their nighttime sleep and their activity tolerance.
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