BEYOND SURVIVAL: CLINICAL REHABILITATION AND FUNCTIONAL OPTIMIZATION PEARLS FOR THE NEURO-ONCOLOGIST

Abstract Over the past decades, major advances in treatment for pediatric brain tumors have led to higher survival rates. Management including surgical resection, chemotherapy and radiation have led to prolonged survival though each comes with potential deleterious impact upon a child's level of function. While function-sparing treatments continue to be developed and utilized each year, the standard of care for many conditions leaves our patients with the potential for worsening function. The areas of mobility, activities of daily living, cognition, communication and swallow are all potentially impacted. Rehabilitation medicine specialists focus on detecting impairments, addressing them with practical interventions and improving the function our shared patients. Unfortunately, there is a worldwide scarcity of rehabilitation medicine physicians and the role of improving function often falls into the hands of the neuro-oncologist. A number of practical clinical assessments and interventions utilized by rehabilitation medicine specialists can be translated to the toolbox of the neuro-oncoligst. The aim of this presentation is to provide the neuro-oncologist with further abilities to enhance function with interventions that typically require low time investment. Topics covered will include the following: 1. What is spasticity, when is it necessary to treat and how is it treated? 2. Leg braces -- who needs them, who doesn't and what are the goals? 3. What physical exam signs can be utilized to detect peripheral neuropathy early and inform further treatment decisions with agents such as Vincristine. 4. What aspects of a gait assessment are high yield in detecting concern for clinical progression? The goal of this talk is high yield and low time investment.. It is unfortunately not applicable for a poster presentation. A minimum amount of time would be 15 minutes. If less time is available for the this presentation, a photo/video-based, rapid-fire format (similar to Tik-Tok content) could be utilized.