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A local cancer rehabilitation specialist is hoping to spread the word about exercising during and after a cancer diagnosis to help local patients regain their confidence "to get back up and moving again."
Georgina Hopkins (30) trained in Exercise Science in Liverpool, where she says her passion to treat via physical activity was ignited.
While at university, Georgina wrote a paper on exercise as part of treatment for children diagnosed with cancer. Interested by how exercise could help patients, even from the moment they are diagnosed, she decided two-and-a-half years ago to set up her own business to offering cancer rehabilitation, Live Life Fitness.
“My aunty went through cancer,” Georgina explained. “I couldn’t understand why where was nothing for people like here. There is a Cancer Rehab Centre in the UK but nothing in Jersey."
Pictured: Georgina has been working with cancer patients for over two years.
The personal trainer works for Active Referral, a role that involves working with people who have medical conditions and require exercise to alleviate symptoms and is also a retained firefighter. Among her many qualifications, she is a Level 4 Cancer Rehabilitation Specialist, a Pink Ribbon Post Rehab Exercise Specialist and a Seated Exercise Instructor. Recently, she qualified as breast cancer pilates instructor.
She is now able to train patients who have been through breast cancer or prostrate cancer, as well as anyone undergoing chemotherapy. Her sessions start with a prolonged warm-up and take into account how surgery affect the body and one’s posture.
"During training, I learned how certain aspects of the treatment can affect the posture," Georgina explained. For example, with women who have gone through breast cancer, their shoulders tend to roll in. It’s all about awareness and doing lighter activity.”
Pictured: Georgina trained to help patients who have gone through breast cancer as well as other types of cancer.
The classes help patients with cancer-related fatigue, which Georgina says 90% of patients suffer from. “Exercising increases energy levels, it helps with depression and anxiety as well. There is also the social aspect of being in a group to exercise.”
While Georgina aims to give people the ability to move more, so that they one day might join a gym club, she says she is mostly there to help others gain their confidence back. “Cancer can really knock your confidence,” Georgina says. “It adds another barrier to what people already have, be it work or children.”
Although she has been helping local patients for over two years, Georgina says most of them still don’t know what she does. She has therefore decided to host an event at Healthaus, where she also works as a personal trainer, on 4 February to help spread the word. Various charities, including FOJO, ABC Jersey and the Donna Annand Melanoma Charity, will also be there to discuss the services they provide, as well as Marks & Spencer, who sell post-operative and sports bras.
On the longer term, Georgina would like to see her work become part of the pathway for cancer patients. This would allow patients to start exercising as soon as they are diagnosed, or as Georgina says, ready. “Of course when you have been diagnosed, exercising is the last thing you want to think about, you have so much going on. I just want to be able to help them as soon as they want to start.
“So many of the people I have helped have told them they wished they had known about the classes sooner.”
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