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Robin Daly
Hello and welcome to the Yes To Life show. My name is Robin Daly, host of the show and founder of Yes To Life, the UK’s integrative cancer care charity. If you’re new to integrative medicine, to let you know, it’s an approach to healthcare which combines conventional methods with lifestyle and complementary medicine to deliver better care. But if you’re plugged into the integrative medicine scene, you’ll have noticed that Australia have been taking the lead in developing exercise as a strategy for cancer care. In the vanguard of that initiative is Karen Anderson, an exercise specialist who I’m speaking to now to find out more about development in Australia. Hi Karen, welcome to the show.

Karen Anderson
Thanks for having me.

Robin Daly
it’s brilliant to get to talk to you all the way around in Australia via the wonders of internet technology. So, where abouts exactly are you speaking from today?

Karen Anderson
So I’m in Queensland, Brisbane, so it’s on the East Coast.

Robin Daly
Right. Halfway up the right hand side to us Brits. Yeah. Right. Um, so you must be deep in the winter at the moment as well, I suppose, as though, uh, maybe it doesn’t mean cranking the eating up like it does for us. Is that what’s it like? No.

Karen Anderson
No, I live, I lived in the UK for a year. So no, it’s nothing like that at all. And because we’re tropical, so Queensland is really sort of that 25 degrees during the day. And we may drop down to around about seven or eight at night for about two months. And that’s it. Yeah. Like, yeah. And that’s only for a few hours. So the time you get to about 10 o’clock, it’s back to 25 again. So no, nothing like your winter. No.

Robin Daly
Okay, so today we’re going to be focusing on exercise and cancer, as you’re a specialist in this field, but also about the work of your organization Foundation 96, which has got a broader arena than just exercise. So before we start, can we get the obvious question out of the way? What’s the 96 all about?

Karen Anderson
All right, so 96 came about trying to search which was going to be a good name. And I had 100 clients, and we had all these different names. And the winner was called the new normal, which didn’t work for me. And we then went back on the drawing board again. And what we ended up doing was thinking about the godfather of medicine. And he said it was like a crab. And then when they looked at it as a crab, and you put it into the sign of a crab, and you turn it around, which was turning cancer around is what we’re thinking of, you could pull up 96. And it was that simple. But then we went, okay, you know, you don’t flip it to 69. We already had all those conversations. Yeah, yeah. And then what do we put in front of it? And because I didn’t know if I wanted to be a profit or non for profit, and I wanted a very strong name, foundation became an obvious name.

Robin Daly
Yeah, so just what does the name foundation imply in Australia?

Karen Anderson
Yeah, so foundation, we can have it both ways. We can have it as a profit or not for profit. At the moment, it’s profit, but down the track, we’ll probably split it up because there’s so many different parts of foundation. Interesting.

Robin Daly
Okay, so can we just hear a bit about your background and how it’s led up to establishing Foundation 96?

Karen Anderson
Yeah, where it started. So I, I’m an exercise physiologist accredited in Australia for working with chronic disease. And I started with all of the Parkinson’s MS, you know, diabetes, osteoporosis, et cetera, all back in 2000, very established chronic disease studio that I built. And it was always in the back of my mind why we did all chronic diseases, but cancer. And when I started to put my science hat on and started to investigate, the oncologists were very much on the belief system that we needed to keep people with cancer in bed, where they’re sick people, and that’s where they stay. So, you know, put a man on the moon, you lose your muscle mass. I really got to the stage where I thought, no, let’s get them up. And let’s start treating cancer like we would any other condition, and see what happens. Luckily, I had a lot of people that believed in me, and we took it quietly, and we started to see what exercise would actually work well for their fatigue levels, pain levels, et cetera. So we were literally working in the dark with trust and, and hoping that nothing went wrong. And we did have oncologists that really went down the pathway of saying, if you heat up the body system, it will metastasize the cancer. So I had the negativities banging away and tried to logically look at that thinking, well, I’ve had a triathlete come in, and they got breast cancer, and they didn’t metastasize after we were doing triathlons. So I’m like, yeah, let’s keep going. Yeah, let’s keep going with science on the cellular aspect of what we would do with that. So because we ended up with so many good results with increased muscle mass, better balance, better absorption rate with chemotherapy, less deaths, the list was just getting bigger and better. By 2006, it was starting around the rest of the world. And sort of where you got around 2010, I’d written the guidelines for the universities in Australia for them to put cancer and exercise in as a subject, so people would come out of university qualified, then we started to get accreditation courses that came on board for extra certification in cancer and exercise, then the research just hit the world. It was just huge. By 2014, I decided to set up Foundation 96, because I needed to find other people like me around the world that offered the services. So that’s where I look for dietitians, psychologists, anyone that specialise physiotherapists, etc, in cancer services. And that’s really where the evolution started.

Robin Daly
Right, okay, amazing. So yeah, Australia is actually quite obviously to us over here, it’s taken a lead with exercise as medicine for people with cancer. So obviously, you were right in there at the forefront, one of the pioneers, who else has been working in this field in Australia? Because I think there are more than one, yeah.

Karen Anderson
It’s not just me. No, no, it used to be just me, but on a research base, you would probably know Prue Callme as a name that is quite significant here in Australia. So she’s sort of our forerunner. But the research, you know, in the US when I was there for six years is outstanding. So yeah, you have some really important key players in America. Research, unfortunately, they don’t put it into practice. So in the six years I was there, I was waiting for like some amazing studios of cancer and exercise. But no, you’re right. Australia’s leading the world. So no, I set up clinics in America, I didn’t learn that they were better than ours. So I came home really with the same mindset that yes, Australia definitely is. We also are leading the world because of Medicare. So our government has recognised it as being a service. And our private benefits have recognised it. So everyone is supporting cancer and exercise in Australia now.

Robin Daly
Well that is interesting, it’s those kind of key points, like having the government behind you is like massive. Any thoughts on what’s made the difference between the Australian government and the rest of us?

Karen Anderson
Oh, okay. Well, we only have 25 million, so it’s a lot easier than larger countries. I believe it’s more of a, when was it? Back in, don’t quote me exactly, but it was around 2006, 2007, excise physiologist hit the streets for quite a few years getting data, trying to build a case to the government about our work in prevention of chronic disease. And we got a Medicare number from that. And that Medicare number gave us five sessions per year. Right. And fast forward to now, what that’s done is seen prevention of chronic conditions and better management. And that’s why I believe the government started to listen and realize that it’s saving money in the healthcare system. If we put exercise in.

Robin Daly
Well, I mean, all that stuff’s given lip service over here, but we’re nothing like where you are in terms of implementation, just as you said about the US, there’s lots of the precursor stuff there that talk about it, the research, the excitement, but actually, you know, down the oncology ward, forget about it, you know, they’re still telling people to take it easy.

Karen Anderson
have a strong body though, like we’ve got, um, Essa, XI Sports Science Australia. Do you have the equivalent in, in what? I’ve never asked that question.

Robin Daly
what was exactly the equivalent but I think the answer is yes and I’m sure they’re working hard but you know we’ve got a pretty entrenched situation here of course as happens yeah I mean it’s interesting my my impression from this side of the planet over the years has been that the level of resistance to lifestyle interventions in fact to anything beyond standard care of the years has been pretty much the same in Australia as here in the UK you know all seriously entrenched but nonetheless there it is exercise is snuck in under the radar and it’s made what you can only call startling progress in terms of how long these things normally take to happen and you know it’s being seen as a sensible approach for cancer patients to adopt this is the sort of thing that nutritionists can only fantasize about nutrition being adopted at the speed that exercise speaking so I mean I got my own series about the differences between exercise and nutrition that produce these radically different responses from the mainstream but I’d be really interested to hear what you think about that

Karen Anderson
Oh, interesting question. You know, I always look at us as working together as a team in integrated medicine with dieticians and exercise physiologists. I never really had the opportunity to think of it in any other way. We do work together as a team, but you’re indicating that there’s probably not that happening in the UK. Well, in a lot of places.

Robin Daly
if it’s different in Australia, I’m keen to hear about it. But in general, nutrition, of course, has been around as a possible adjunct to cancer treatment for 100 years. And it’s made little, if any, progress. In this country, people are routinely still told to eat whatever they like, it doesn’t matter what you eat when you have cancer. It’s nonsense. It’s not science, it’s nonsense. But that’s what we were told.

Karen Anderson
Wow, okay. No, it’s not that way here, by any means. No, because in the people that we’re looking after, there’s always a dietician. So it’s a triangle. It’s the emotional, physical and nutritional triangle that we focus on, because it’s not a one-stop shop. We have to work together as a team because nausea and vomiting and malnutrition or whatever the case may be for that individual person. It has to be managed, especially, you know, throat cancers and head cancers in that area that has to be managed by a dietician.

Robin Daly
Yeah. In that case, what I’d say is, yes, that happens here, is that we have a dietitian who will manage karkexia, that kind of thing. It’s sort of serious side effects of cancer and cancer treatment. They will be there for. But I’m talking about a supportive nutrition for which in this country, the dietitians don’t really do that at all. They’re not clear for that. Nutritionists are the people who do that.

Karen Anderson
nutritionists or naturopaths will probably fill that gap.

Robin Daly
conventional medicine completely.

Karen Anderson
Oh, interesting. So they’re different all around the world. In Australia, our nutritionists work similar to a dietician, but they have a limitation of what their licenses can do. And our naturopaths are really looking at what herbs and vitamins in that area you should not be taking, or you should be taking that could help you. So that’s really where their separations are in there because you don’t want to be taking certain, especially through treatment, you don’t want to be taking, you know, outflows, herbs and spices, whatever she’s coming up with. And it’s actually speeding things up where you should be suppressing things. So they’re there for that watchdog piece.

Robin Daly
Sure. Yeah, safety is very important. But, you know, the, the safety measures that are taken here in that direction are to say, don’t take any of that stuff. No, that’s the safety approach, right? Just don’t do it. Whatever it is, if it isn’t chemo, don’t do it. No, that’s not good. No, it’s not good. So, well, look, I’m happy to hear that something different is happening over there. There’s something better than that, because, you know, I know we’re way behind in Britain here. I mean, something better than that is happening in America as well. Integrative care is now a feature of all the major cancer centers in America. And so within that, obviously, nutritionists will be front and center along with naturopaths, whatever. But so, yeah, we’re, we’re lurking at least a decade, probably more behind on that score. But, you know, it’s good to hear what’s happening elsewhere, because people in this country need to realize just how bad things are, so that we can say time to wake up.

Karen Anderson
Time to wake up. Well, it’s a biggest story in America because they have a doctor of naturopathy. Now a doctor of naturopathy will cross the line into treating cancer as well as supporting cancer side effects. And that becomes a internal fight within the medical system. So that’s not all good. That’s got its issues. And to prescribe for a cancer patient, you have to have in America a degree as a dietician nutritionist. So it’s a big story for everyone around, but I don’t know why you’re left behind in the UK. Maybe the whole system is not working efficiently. It might not just be cancer care.

Robin Daly
it’s a systemic thing. I don’t know how it compares with Australia, but basically we famously have our NHS that we love, which has good features about it. It’s on its knees, it’s not really working at the moment. But there are aspects of it that were built with the very best motives and RX, the fact that anybody comes in the door and they get looked after. And that’s great, but it is such a massive piece of machinery that on the negative side, it has a massive ability to resist change. And whereas in America, say, where there’s a business model that we don’t particularly like, and we don’t want, they are much more nimble and likely to respond to a public that says, well, you know, there’s something that’s cheaper and that works and the patients like it, they’re likely to say, yes, this will give us the edge. So we’ll do it. So, you know, I feel this is why all the major cancer centers in America have an integrated medicine department is because actually they have to now. Otherwise, they’re kind of buying the times, they’re missing out, they’ll be seen as old fashioned. So we haven’t even got one here, not one.

Robin Daly
And that’s a measure of just how much, I mean, the public is seriously interested in integrated medicine. They’re spending billions on it every year out of their own pockets, even though there’s a free health service. And yet there is, you know, little to no interest from healthcare itself to adopt methods that could actually work, save money, keep people out of hospital, be exactly on message with the government policy that’s supposed to be front and centre of maintaining people’s health rather than just trying to pick them up when they’re sick.

Karen Anderson
Yeah, it’s saving money. It’s preventive. And maybe that’s the key there that they need to start to look at where they can save money. But that’s a big vision. So you’re going to have to get someone in the government that’s got that vision and your health minister is going to have to draw that vision. And it’s not a four year term. It’s got to be a long term vision to be able to fix that up.

Robin Daly
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s right. And of course, governments change and health ministers change and keeping something on track like that is difficult. So again, that’s another aspect of a huge government run system is that it’s prey to those kinds of forces and it’s prey to the other forces which don’t want nutrition in healthcare as well. Other business forces for example, will be acting against government to try and ensure that we keep on target with what we already do because all the business that’s built around medicine likes it the way it is, of course.

Karen Anderson
as in the pharmaceutical companies being the main drivers against the supplement companies.

Robin Daly
Yeah. I mean, you know, when I referred to the difference between exercise and nutrition, for example, exercise to me has no major block of business that has an interest in whether or not exercise is taken on by people with cancer. They don’t stand to lose anything from it, anything they might gain. You know, there’s no one way or the other about it particularly. Now nutrition has been a competition for pharmaceutical medicine for a hundred years already. And further to that, there’s another competitor, another massive block of industry, which is the food industry, which also doesn’t want food to be seen as medicine, because then people look too hard at what they’re putting in it and what it’s made of and how good it is. And, you know, there’s two massive industries trying to keep all our attention away from the idea that food is medicine.

Robin Daly
That’s interesting. But exercise and medicine has had this extraordinarily easy ride because there’s no great impediment to it. It’s great.

Karen Anderson
Yeah, that’s really interesting. You know, I’ve never thought about that whatever thought about that. Yeah, so yeah

Robin Daly
I think about this stuff all the time and just like it’s so frustrating, but you know because these those industries are influencing not just Healthcare providers themselves the NHS or however. They’re also influencing governments. They’re that big so it’s tough

Karen Anderson
where the money is, where the money goes.

Robin Daly
That’s right. So yeah, so maybe we can move on to talking about where we’re at with the science now. So I’m interested to hear what’s established as fact in relation to exercise and cancer and what’s looking very likely to be factual based on the findings so far.

Karen Anderson
So where we’re at now is looking at prescription with bone metastases and some of the difficult prescription and testings on what we should or shouldn’t do with that population. So that’s a lot of the research that’s coming out. We’re also looking at clearly the new therapies, so your immunotherapies and your targeted therapies come with usually a cost of a cardiac response of some type. So now we’re looking at what happens with high low intensity exercise to see if we can get that heart muscle as strong as it possibly can through those therapies. And that’s going to be an interesting watch I think in time is to see if we can try and keep the heart as healthy as possible through some of these medications. So as much as we want chemo to go, the new treatment processes that are coming through still come through with some type of negative aspects towards the heart.

Robin Daly
So, can I just jump in and ask you to say a bit more about what you’re saying about with bone mets and, you know, what is being found out? It’s a very interesting area. I mean, intuitively, you want to wrap people up in cotton wool and they’ve got bone mets. But tell me, what’s the science saying?

Karen Anderson
Yeah, it is an interesting thing. And this has been going on for the last 10 years. So what test would you not do? I mean, where are we going to look at the vertebrae? We’re looking at an osteoporosis environment. But also, do you know where it’s actually spread to? So you need to be very mindful of getting some really good data to find out where it is. So is it in an organ? Is it in an upper body, lower body? So we can start to look at what testing procedures we need to be careful or what exercise are being prescribed with it. Because our goal is about activities of daily living. So you want to keep someone as functionally fit as possible. And then you want to make sure they’re as strong as they possibly can on a muscle side. So it’s going to put less work onto the frame of the body. And that’s the goal for every human being, not just a cancer person. But you got to work around that and say, well, let’s cut it up. And we get tick boxes and graphs that we work towards and say, well, yes, you can do that. No, you can’t. Yes, you can. And you just got to weigh it up at the end. And there’s your answer. So you don’t want to do cable roll, you don’t want to be doing jump squats or whatever the case may be. And it’s quite scientifically put together for that person. And then you need to be looking at in time, what’s changing? So are they getting lower back pain or pain in other areas that they need to go and address? Because you may or may not be aware of, when we’re prescribing and delivering exercise, we start to have an hour with someone to hear about where their pains or what they’re experiencing or what they’re going through, which a GP doesn’t have that luxury. So we will probably have that feeling that something’s probably not right. And you just advise them to go back in and get their testings done. So quite often, we’re the first call, but that’s not in our scope of practice to say those things. So you always refer on and say, look, you need to go and get this looked at because, you know, the heart rate is not working efficiently, or there’s something in a trachycardia or arrhythmia or something going on or something in a different like we can see when you come in, when you’re deteriorating.

Karen Anderson
or whether you’re progressing, because we are looking at you only ever once a week or once every couple of weeks, where you’re looking at yourself all day long. So it’s really easy to see. And we take notes, obviously, and we start to track those things. So we’re sort of like that second set of eyes that can help. Because as you know, one of the biggest things that people have to go through is that fear of a secondary cancer. And that’s, yes, you’ve had the treatment. Yes, you’ve been released. And yes, you’ve gone home. But that is the only thing people focus on on a psychological basis that we have to try and bring it down and keep it at a level that’s manageable. And then take the steps to go and look at the testings when they need to be. So that’s where exercise is probably a good thing with that. As in prescribing exercise, not a lot’s changed in that area. We’re definitely looking through, obviously, chemotherapy exercise. So looking at putting it in hospitals, and having you exercise through chemotherapy, and looking at reducing side effects of chemo. So that’s an area that I have a lot of passion for. Because I think there’s, it’s something that definitely needs to happen. But talk about getting that into a hospital. And luckily, I got it into a hospital in America. But that’s not even easy to get into an Australia.

Robin Daly
That’s interesting. So that I got the impression that it was kind of something that was an acceptable idea by now, but that’s not true.

Karen Anderson
It’s not standard of care by any means. There’s a huge policies and procedures will have to change and it always comes down to money on who’s going to pay for it and whether there’s room and whether the nurses want it to be in their environment, it’s a big story. It’s not just a small let’s go and do it.

Robin Daly
Right, right. Okay and anything else on the science front? Seth that’s being researched now which is looking promising.

Karen Anderson
Um, have you kept up with blood testings now? So we’re looking at, yeah, so at the moment we’re looking at, I think we’ve got 50 different cancers that they’re trying to detect through blood tests. So blood test biopsies, which is going to be interesting because it’s going to probably stop a lot of the testings that we’ll need for secondary cancers, but also diagnosing the primary cancer. Is it ready yet? I don’t think so. We just had a paper come out the other day that said that there were a large number of people that were wrongly diagnosed with cancer. So no, you don’t want that to happen. That’s not good. And the other thing is that they’re getting diagnosed with cancer, but they can’t locate where it is. So you still got to go looking. So that’s really early stages, but it’s pretty promising when you start to think about that in the next 10 years that you won’t have to worry about your mammograms. Absolutely. There’s got to be something better. Yeah.

Robin Daly
Yeah. Okay. And any other sort of pioneering developments in the exercise field that, apart from what you’re doing, is there anybody else doing anything exciting and new?

Karen Anderson
Oh, new and innovative exercising. I think a lot more is becoming online, which is a change from being face to face in exercise. So a lot more courses are happening. And that’s an area where we’re advancing into at the moment, too, where we’re actually getting experts in the field at the moment, we’ve just got a yoga class. So it’s a it’s a course that’s actually online written by a cancer survivor for cancer survivors, survivors, warriors. And, you know, it’s a six week course. So instead of you going and having an instructor or going to a place, you can actually buy the course, learn how to do it and do it yourself at home. So that’s a shift now. And that’s going to be really important, I believe, in rural settings. And Australia obviously has a lot of rural settings. So we need to start to look at how we can look at treating that better. Yeah. And looking at detections and different ways that we can try and support people. Because if you’re five hours away from a treatment, or five hours away from anything, it could be seven hours away from things here in Australia, you don’t tend to get cancer managed, because it’s just too hard. They they very interesting.

Robin Daly
Interesting point. It’s quite a different situation to be managing with this extremely sparse population. The idea of finding a group of people who’ve got cancer or doing yoga might be a tough call. So, yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting.

Karen Anderson
Exactly. So this is what we’re setting up at the moment. So where my role is with Foundation 06 at the moment is we’re trying to take our services into remote services in the doctor surgeries and hospitals to actually do exactly what you were suggesting earlier is to integrate us in the medical teams. So there won’t be a gap between you leaving from finishing cancer treatment into, oh, I have a world of side effects that no one sort of probably mentioned I should be dealing with. We can be there and support side effects as they come on, or we’ll have a measure to say, right, well, if you’ve had surgery and lymph nodes have been removed, or they’ve had radiation and they’re damaged, then we want to live for demotherapists. And we’re building a lot of this online. So it might be a good thing for you guys in the UK that you can tap into services in Australia or in America, because we’re in 19 countries now. So what you can do that is if you’re lacking that, you can then tap into those services and get those from another country. So then you’re not missing out those those things can all come to your front door. So all of the exercise classes and things that people are putting together now and lymphedema management. I mean, that wasn’t something that I thought we would end up doing. So I would recommend you go to a lymphedema therapist. But now the lymphedema therapists are designing courses for cancer patients to do themselves. So we’re really changing the way. Yeah, changing, taking the focus away, if you can’t get to these people, or you don’t have them accessible, then you can learn it yourself. So you’re virtually taking control of your cancer management. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

Robin Daly
You’re absolutely right. It’s all part of the kind of the acceleration of the technology and the thinking that came with COVID is that, well, we’ve had to make do and the technology has moved very fast in order to fill the gap. And suddenly people have started doing things online that maybe you would have dreamt to do before, you know, ridiculous ideas will never work. Well, it had to work in COVID. And we found out that actually quite a lot of things can work out way, which is, you’re right. It’s a great resource, particularly for people who are isolated or who can’t move because they’re, you know, bed bound or whatever, you know, they can’t get out of the house.

Karen Anderson
Yeah, and immune systems. I mean, if your immune system is not to the standard where it should be out in population, you know, you don’t want to go to a dirty gym, not the gym should be dirty, they should all be clean. However, I don’t think I would take a poor immune system to anything that has a population of people. So it now is giving you the opportunity. And there’s also a lot, there’s a big story there because there might be body issues after surgery and they don’t want to go out. Absolutely. So you can then do it at home. So I’ve got an acupuncture therapist that sends you needles and then you do it together through Zoom. Now that is just… DIY acupuncture. Really? Are we really doing this?

Robin Daly
Yeah, it’ll be DIY surgery next

Karen Anderson
Well, we’ve got them. I mean, the third year, you have those in the UK, don’t you? So we’ve got robotics surgeries now. True. We do have robotics. Yeah.

Robin Daly
I was going to say, yes.

Karen Anderson
So it is already happening, but you’ve got to know, and this is the big issue I think is how do you know you need that service? How do you know that that side effect could be coming to you? How do you know when you should address it? So there’s still needs to be a human there that connects all that to give you that information.

Robin Daly
That’s absolutely right. And that’s why we need organizations like yours and ours to help do that stuff, signposting, making people aware of what’s out there. The event that I spoke to you about before we started that goes precisely to do that is about building a cancer team, people who are there to support you through treatment. So yeah, very important, all that side of it. But you’re right, there’s a lot of resources that can be accessed in different ways.

Karen Anderson
Yeah. And it’s about getting the right time. And these are discussions that we have a lot in the industry. So by the time I see people with cancer consulting, they’ve got a huge folder that they’ve been sent home with that is extremely overwhelming. I’ve flicked through a few of them and most people literally put it in the cupboard. It’s overwhelming. They don’t know where to start. It’s too many words. It’s too terrifying. And they’re still trying to process that they’ve been through cancer treatment and they’re trying to work out how they’re going to then get back to everyday life. That is not the way to deliver the information. We already know that. So when should we deliver it? And how should we deliver it? At what time should it be delivered? And that’s what I think we’re going to make a big change in cancer care over the next few years. It’s going to be a big focus for a lot of us to say, all right, do we ping it on a phone? Do we get someone to ring you? Because again, who’s going to pay for this? So they’re all the big the big questions out there to try and get better cancer care.

Robin Daly
Yeah. Can I just ask you about, I mean, there’s been a recent white paper in Australia, hasn’t there, on integration in cancer care particularly. Do you want to say a little bit about that? What’s, you know, what progress that’s made?

Karen Anderson
Well, that’s probably when you start to look at the white paper integrating with us. It is given that opportunity for the funding to go through Medicare so we can all look at being part of a team and our Cancer Centre, so I can live in Newton John Cancer Centre. We’ve got the lighthouse here that so we have that opportunity where the integrated therapies are becoming as important as the treatment, medical treatment. So you’ve got your multidisciplinary team and then that feeds into our services. Right. It’s got to be the way of the future.

Robin Daly
It is opening the door to what you’d like to see.

Karen Anderson
is it fast enough? No. Is it opening the door? Yes. Yes, it is. So can you take a paper like that and see how you could, or who would, who would be the, the team that you need to, to get things changing in, in Britain, do you?

Robin Daly
He’s close to rippling the white paper over here, is getting talked about, so good, good on you, as they say.

Karen Anderson
Yeah, I mean closer here in Australia, they’re moving leaps and bounds. And I think it’s the right people in the right places too. And you make enough noise.

Robin Daly
Right. But also the ears to hear it are better after COVID. Do you experience that?

Karen Anderson
I don’t think, no, I don’t, I don’t believe we’ve had a big change from that. I really had to process that. Cause I’m thinking, no, what changed is our digital world changed. And our, um, willingness to be able to do things online and work from home changed. I don’t think anything else in the, not that I’ve noticed has changed in, you know, Medicare or private benefits or the way doctors do things. I think doctors have a lot less time with people and a lot more stressed, definitely, and burnt out, but has it changed? No. Um, that’s our role. And this is what I believe our integrated therapies have got to supplement what the doctors are trying to do. We should be there. And this is where maybe there’s a model there in Britain for that. But we actually have like an exercise physiologist, a dietitian, a psychologist. They all sit in the same medical hub. So every medical center you go to has those three services sitting there. So the referrals can just go in that door, out that door, in that door. And you don’t have to go anywhere else. It’s just one stop hub. And I think that now is becoming an online thing because our doctors work online now. So you get your, you make your appointment and COVID did that definitely. So you don’t need to go and see the doctor now, unless it’s something they physically have to see you for. You can just do it all online now. Um, so yeah, I think that’s all COVID changed is the acceptance of online services.

Robin Daly
Okay, well look, we haven’t talked much about Foundation 96 yet, let’s get into that before we finish. Just tell me broadly, a quick elevated pitch, what does it do?

Karen Anderson
It supports people with side effects from cancer care, connects those people to the right health professionals that can help them.

Robin Daly
Right, okay. Now you set out saying it’s a for-profit foundation at the moment but straight away I noticed you offer a free personal care plan. That doesn’t sound like good business. Who’s this offered to and what do they get?

Karen Anderson
Yeah, there’s a couple of free things in there. You got to have your free things. There’s a couple. One is you can go in there and pop in your cancer stage and side effects. And it will link you and explain to you who you should connect with. The other thing in there is looking at documenting your cancer service treatment. So what did you have? When did you have it? So you can log it all together. And then you print it out and keep it home. So that big shoebox of things can be changed into. And I want that piece of paper in people’s lives, because in five years time, when we asked the questions, I don’t remember those answers. And it’s really important in exercise prescription to know what you had as treatment. So we know where we need to be focusing on. So that’s why that’s in there. The service directory, we got 1200 businesses, they’re free too, by the way, not good business sense either, is it? And the reason for the reason for that is that we need to be able to cover as many places as we can in the world that offer these services. So our health consultants, which you do pay for is a paid service can refer people to

Robin Daly
Okay, so you’re all over the planet, so are you regularly working with people who are patients all over the world?

Karen Anderson
anywhere can do that. And then we feed those clients to the businesses on our service directory. Because the service directory businesses have to be qualified, they’ve got to be experienced, certified, licensed, and then we go down another level and start to look at the back end of them and what’s their web presence and what’s their social media presence. We want to make sure that you want to be able to refer your mum to these people. They got to be the best of the best in these areas. And we do that and then we keep track of them. And we make sure that they legit. So there’s got to be a discipline that’s been researched and published research quality that you know that you’re going to be able to get the service that you’re asking people to deliver the service with. So it’s a huge part of the business in that area. But we help market and support people, businesses and also now with the oncology training coming on board. So we got, as I said earlier, we’ve got the courses for upskilling health professionals. And we’ve got courses for the cancer community to be able to take control of their side effects as well. So that’s another area of our business of income.

Robin Daly
Interesting. So to come back to the free personal care plan, does that relate directly to where people will then be pointed to with regards to the directory?

Karen Anderson
Oh, you can do a free search. What it will do is give you an indication of who and what health professional can manage that side effect, and then they can search the directory themselves. You just go in and say, I want a dietitian and where do you live? And there, where do we?

Robin Daly
Okay. But the other service you mentioned a second ago is this one that it talks about specific treatment side effects, and the resources that could help you with this, that seems like a very useful resource for people with cancer who are completely dogged by whatever it is, fatigue, and what are they going to do about it. So do you want to say a bit more about that?

Karen Anderson
Yeah, so we’ve got what we’ve done is we’ve connected treatment. So surgery, chemo, radiation targeted therapies and now immunotherapies. We’ve looked at all the side effects that’s possibly come from that. We then have gone through all of the research papers to see who can manage that and then obviously we found them. So that knowledge that we put together. People can then see how it’s matched by who can do it. Because not one person, not one discipline can look after it. So if it’s a fatigue, for example, Pilates, yoga, exercise and those areas, but also nutrition and things can also acupuncture. There’s so many different things that can help. So it’s not going to be one way, but you can read down there and go, oh, okay. Yeah, well, I might do that, or I might do that, or I don’t like needles, or I don’t like exercise and I’d rather try something else. So it gives you those options. But if you’re talking to one of the health consultants, we will literally listen to you and drill it down in an hour until we eventually find your main side effect, which is usually different from the one they start with. And when we find that main side effect, we then look at short goals on how you can manage that to reduce that stress for you and link you with someone. It might not be with someone on the directory. It might be the fact that you just need to talk to someone and know that it’s all okay, because what I find in my day to day job and our health consultants when we have our meetings is people don’t know if that is cancer or is it a side effect or is it just something I need to live with? Is it something that just is there? No one has sat down and actually given that information and allowed them to discuss all of what they’re feeling so we can then see the picture of what they’re trying to do with. It might be as simple as they’re not sure how to get back to work with their physical issues because most people are just grateful they’ve been told that they’re not having to deal with cancer, but they’ve put up with all the rest, which they didn’t need to do because there’s usually a solution for all of those things and that’s the important part. No one should be trying to be stressed at home trying to do this alone and they don’t know who to contact because the surgeon’s gone, the chemo’s gone, the radiation’s gone, the oncologist is gone and then where do you go? What do you do? The GP doesn’t know what to do, so it leaves us.

Robin Daly
Right, well good, great for stepping into the gap. So the one hour consultation you just described is that, that’s a paid for part of the service. That is, yeah.

Karen Anderson
It’s Australian dollars is 96. 69 in those numbers are always there, aren’t they? 69 in America. Now you could do a quick brick convert. What’s yours to ours?

Robin Daly
Oh, it’s going to be about 50 quid then, isn’t it?

Karen Anderson
probably yeah

Robin Daly
yeah something like that so incredibly cheap actually and so that advice could be had by anyone anywhere on the planet

Karen Anderson
Yes, anywhere, any time zone, where we are. I’m not good at multilingual. You need to speak a bit of English because I’m not good at different countries. But we do, we will go down that pathway eventually. But right now, majority of our work is 76% of our consulting is America. So we just start early in the morning. And we’ve got people in America clearly for the times that we can’t be there on Australia and then and in England. But you’re right, we don’t have a big business in England at all. It’s not at all pulling, you know, you might we might get 20% of our clients would come from England, which is low when you think about it.

Robin Daly
Yes, it’s low and I think there’s lots of demand, so that is good to hear about anyway, so that’s a great resource for people. Thank you. Okay, so maybe we have a quick word about your training a bit more. So you’re saying training for health professionals, that’s open to any healthcare professional?

Karen Anderson
So this is the oncology training. I want people that are experienced and knowledgeable in practical application for treating cancer in something that’s published. You can’t just make something up. So what what happens? All right, let’s just put the exercise hat on because that’s where I come from. So I’ll read a research paper, and I will take that knowledge and I’ll put it into my practice and I will build an exercise program from that knowledge. So it could be cardiovascular and I’ll go, Oh, okay, we need to be running at this speed or we need to be doing that to be able to do a positive effect on someone’s heart. So I get that knowledge and I build a program and then 20 years later, I’m still doing it. I want to hear from those people. I want them to build a course, because that’s gold, because one day you’ll retire and all the people coming through the system will never know what amazing things you did. It gives them a passive income, because they’re selling courses. But most importantly, it’s giving people that are dealing with cancer side effects the opportunity to have very qualified skilled people constantly upskilling themselves with these new practical. I don’t want university or college cancer and exercise or cancer and nutrition or psychology, because we all know that. It’s what did you do in your business? Why are your clients coming back to you? What are you doing? That’s amazing. And so it’s a three way thing. They’re going to make money, we get their information, the cancer patients benefit. But unbeknown to me, which I wasn’t planning is people now in the cancer community, our cancer patients want to pay for courses, they want to buy courses now to do their own care. So that’s a whole new world now. So yeah, we’ve got one.

Robin Daly
Well, there’s a lot to talk about there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’d love to go into all that. Guess what? We’re out of time. We’re out of time. So that’s gonna have to be the subject of another interview. It will, because the one that we’re eating.

Karen Anderson
interest you is like the live for demon nutrition course that will be interesting there we are time we’ve had about another day

Robin Daly
Fantastic. All right. Well, look, thanks so much for talking to us today, Karen. I love your project. It’s clearly driven forward by your extraordinary passion. I wish you every success with it.

Karen Anderson
Thanks Robin, I hope we’ll try again another time. We’ll solve the problem of the healthcare system in England.

Robin Daly
Yeah, it could do some help.

Karen Anderson
Oh, I’ll give it some thought. We’ll keep in contact and see if I can help out in any way. Thank you. All right. Thank you.

Robin Daly
I’m always interested to hear about what’s happening elsewhere on the planet in terms of health care and about the different ways that things work. Check out all the services that Karen mentioned at her organisation’s website which is foundation96.com and the 96 is in numbers, foundation96.com. Thanks for listening today, I’ll be back again next week with another Yes To Life show.