Physical function and rehabilitation in patients with brain tumours: narrative review

Patients with brain tumours experience a variety of symptoms and side effects due to treatment, which can seriously affect their physical function and activities of daily living. These patients also face a greater physical burden than that experienced by patients with other cancers, and rehabilitation interventions are important. However, thus far, there have been no sufficient investigations of how rehabilitation interventions contribute to improving patients’ physical function, activities of daily living and prognosis. Therefore, a narrative review was conducted to explore physical function and its influence on the prognosis of patients with brain tumours, as well as to investigate the effects of rehabilitation interventions in these patients. Patients with brain tumours experience a decline in physical function and physical activity, which are related to prognosis, over a long period of time. The effects of rehabilitation interventions for patients with brain tumours have been reported in randomised clinical trials and before-and-after studies. Patients with brain tumours experience long-term declines in physical function and activity; therefore, long-term rehabilitation interventions are important for these patients. Furthermore, although the effectiveness of these interventions in randomised clinical trials has been reported, most research is limited to patients with gliomas, and future investigation is required.